How exactly it all happened, even now I find it hard to say. As Lawrence sprang forward, the figure rose to its feet, and in an instant was alive. It opened its arms; from its finger-tips came knives. Stepping forward it gripped Lawrence with its steel-clad hands, with a grip from which there was no escaping. From every part of its frame gleaming blades had sprung; against this _cheval-de-frise_ it pressed him again and again, twirling him round and round, moving him up and down, so that the weapons pierced and hacked back and front. Even from its eyes, mouth, and nostrils had sprung knives. It kept jerking its head backwards and forwards, so that it could stab with them at his face and head. And, all the while, from somewhere came the sound of a woman’s laughter--that dreadful sound which I had heard in my dream. CHAPTER XXVI. THE LEGACY OF THE SCARLET HANDS We could do nothing for him. The shock of the surprise, for a moment, held us motionless. But so soon as we realised that the man was being hacked to death before our eyes, we rushed to his assistance. It was of no avail. Death had, probably, been instantaneous, so much mercy the creature showed. A sharp-pointed blade, more than eighteen inches long, which proceeded from its stomach, had pierced him through and through. The writhing, gibbering puppet held him skewered in a dozen places. To have released him we should have had to tear him into pieces. When I tried to drag him free, I only succeeded in bringing the whole thing over. Down he came, with his assailant sticking to him like a limpet. Pinning him on to the floor, it continued its extraordinary contortions, lacerating its victim with every movement in a hundred different places. It was difficult to believe that it was not alive. Perceiving that it was not to be persuaded by any other means to loosen its embrace, I struck it on the back, again and again, with a heavy wooden chair. Presently it was still; its movements ceased; it became again inanimate. As if its lust for blood was glutted, it rolled over, lethargically, upon its side, leaving its handiwork exposed--a horrible spectacle. A grin--as it were a smile, born of repletion--was on the creature’s face.