 | The fiend's delight |  |
“One More Unfortunate.”
It was midnight—a black, wet, midnight—in a
great city by the sea. The church clocks were
booming the hour, in tones half-smothered by the
marching rain, when an officer of the watch saw
a female figure glide past him like a ghost in the
gloom, and make directly toward a wharf. The
officer felt that some dreadful tragedy was about to
be enacted, and started in pursuit. Through the
sleeping city sped those two dark figures like
shadows athwart a tomb. Out along the deserted
wharf to its farther end fled the mysterious fugitive,
the guardian of the night vainly endeavouring to
overtake, and calling to her to stay. Soon she stood
upon the extreme end of the pier, in the scourging
rain which lashed her fragile figure and blinded
her eyes with other tears than those of grief.
The night wind tossed her tresses wildly in air,
and beneath her bare feet the writhing billows
struggled blackly upward for their prey. At this
fell! He was badly bruised; he felt angry and
misanthropic. Instead of rising to his feet, he
sat doggedly up and began chafing his abraded
shin. The desperate woman raised her white arms
heavenward for the final plunge, and the voice of
the gale seemed like the dread roaring of the
waters in her ears, as down, down, she went—in
imagination—to a black death among the spectral
piles. She backed a few paces to secure an
impetus, cast a last look upon the stony officer,
with a wild shriek sprang to the awful verge and
came near losing her balance. Recovering herself
with an effort, she turned her face again to the
officer, who was clawing about for his missing
club. Having secured it, he started to leave.
In a cosy, vine-embowered cottage near the
sounding sea, lives and suffers a blighted female.
Nothing being known of her past history, she is
treated by her neighbours with marked respect.
She never speaks of the past, but it has
been remarked that whenever the stalwart form of
a certain policeman passes her door, her clean,
delicate face assumes an expression which can only
be described as frozen profanity.
| The fiend's delight | |