HE had waked her! In an instant the angel form of Mercy melted away--and there stood the devil with his arms folded. "Murder!--fire!--rape!--thieves!--what, Nephew Jennings, is that you, with all my honey pots? Help! help! help!" "Phew-w-w!" whistled the devil: "I tell you what, Master Simon, you must quiet the old woman, she bellows like a bull, the house'll be about your ears in a twinkling--she'll hang you for this!" Yes--he must quiet her--the game was up; he threatened, he implored, but she would shriek on; she slept alone on the ground-floor, and knew she must roar loudly to be heard above the drawing-rooms; she would not be quieted--she would shriek--and she did. What must he do? she'll raise the house!--Stop her mouth, stop her mouth, I say, can't you?--No, she's a powerful, stout, heavy woman, and he cannot hold her: ha! she has bitten his finger to the bone, like a very tigress! look at the blood! "Why can't you touch her throat; no teeth there, bless you! that's the way the wind comes: bravo! grasp it--tighter! tighter! tighter!" She struggled, and writhed, and wrestled, and fought--but all was strangling silence; they rolled about the floor together, tumbled on the bed, scuffled round the room, but all in horrid silence; neither uttered a sound, neither had a shoe on--but all was earnest, wicked, death-dealing silence. Ha! the desperate victim has the best of it; gripe harder, Jennings; she has twisted her fingers in your neckcloth, and you yourself are choking: fool! squeeze the swallow, can't you? try to make your fingers meet in the middle--lower down, lower down, grasp the gullet, not the ears, man--that's right; I told you so: tighter, tighter, tighter! again; ha, ha, ha, bravo! bravo!--tighter, tighter, tighter! At length the hideous fight was coming to an end--though a hungry constrictor, battling with the huge rhinoceros, and crushing his mailed ribs beneath its folds, could not have been so fierce or fearful; fewer now, and fainter are her struggles; that face is livid blue--the eyes have started out, and goggle horribly; the tongue protrudes, swollen and black. Aha! there is another convulsive effort--how strong she is still! can you hold her, Simon?--can he?--All the fiend possessed him now with savage exultation: can he?--only look! gripe, gripe still, you are conquering, strong man! she is getting weaker, weaker; here is your reward, gold! gold! a mighty store uncounted; one more grasp, and it is all your own--relent now, she hangs you. Come, make short work of it, break her neck--gripe harder--back with her, back with here against the bedstead: keep her down, down I say--she must not rise again. Crack! went a little something in her neck--did you hear it? There's the death-rattle, the last smothery complicated gasp--what, didn't you hear that? And the devil congratulated Simon on his victory. CHAPTER XXIX. THE REWARD.