"Your nerve is excellent!" he grudgingly admitted. "But how long will it last? Beudant, be good enough to bare our patient's feet."
Beudant obeyed. I have well-shaped feet, with not a blemish upon either. I was not ashamed to have them publicly exhibited. I could not see them myself because of my position, but Marion looked at them, and her glance was quickly riveted. Her lips were moving, and she seemed to be muttering to herself, although I heard no sound. God in Heaven! how beautiful she was, and how I hated her!
Within a few minutes, Jussieu re-appeared, bearing an iron plate, upon which was arrayed a brace of steel awls, set in wooden handles. The points glimmered blue and red. At a nod from Sir Charles Venner, my chair was tipped back in order to raise the soles of my feet. My ankles were strapped securely to the legs of the chair.
Jussieu set his plate upon the floor, and taking one of the awls in his hand, glanced up at his master.
"One moment!" cried Marion. She darted to the rack and seized the half-emptied champagne bottle which Beudant had opened for my benefit. Disdaining the cup, whose rim my lips had touched, she raised the bottle to her mouth and bending back her head drank deeply.
Sir Charles and I exchanged glances of amusement. A little later Marion recovered her position, but she continued to hold the bottle. The wine had produced an instantaneous and curious effect. She was snow white, and her eyes were dull and turgid. "I am ready!" she declared.
The surgeon stepped to the side of my chair, and presenting his back to Marion put his fingers on my right wrist.
Jussieu kneeled upon the floor, and passed his accursed awl across my instep. The pain was so exquisite that, although I fought like a tiger for control, I writhed and groaned.
The torture seared again, and then I shrieked.
But Marion glided forward, and raising the heavy bottle that she held on high, she brought it down with a crashing blow upon Sir Charles Venner's undefended head. The glass shivered into fragments, and the surgeon fell without groan or cry, unconscious at my feet.
My chair was unexpectedly released. I swung forward, seated erect again, helpless and suffering intensely, but uplifted to a mental contempt of pain in a sudden rapture of astonishment. Marion, who had stepped back almost to the farthest wall, faced the negroes with a little cocked pistol, which did not waver in her grasp. Her face was still ashen coloured, but her eyes were simply on fire.