Читать книгу The Threatening Eye - E. F. Knight - Страница 9

"We are now satisfied that no test known to modern science can detect the presence of this poison. For our purpose it can be injected into the arm, with a hypodermic syringe, or even dropped on any delicate mucous membrane. We have experimented on it in every way, and are more than satisfied with the result."

"Ah!" chuckled the wizened blue-stocking, as she took off and wiped her spectacles, "I can picture to myself the doctors puzzling over these strange patients. They will shake their heads, mutter 'marasmus,' and be at a total loss to explain such rapid decline. There will be long articles in the Lancet on the subject of this new disease—this deadly children's plague. It will be very interesting to read their theories about it."

"The game will soon begin," said Susan Riley, "and then woe to the tyrants!"

"Woe to them!" repeated the sisters in a low chorus, which brought a smile to the beautiful wicked face of the young mother.

After a pause sister Eliza spoke:

"You yourself have no pupils at present, sister Catherine; have you found a new one yet? You told me the other day you were looking for one."

"Not yet," Catherine replied. "I have not come across the sort of girl I want in London. I wish to find a young girl whom I can educate for our work from the very beginning. I am going to the North to-morrow, to my own country, for a week, I have an idea that though I have failed in London I shall succeed there. It may be a foolish fancy, but I think something will come of it. The temper of our Northern people is better adapted for this work than that of the flighty Southerners. But now I must show you the results of my last experiment."

She went out and returned with a little dog in her arms. So emaciated was it, so weak that one would have imagined that only a long period of starvation could have reduced it to this condition.

It kept its eyes closed, save for an occasional lack-lustre glimmer through half-shut lids. It was too weak to move a limb, but it was patient, evidently not suffering, and it attempted to lick its mistress's hand as she brought it carefully in.

Said Catherine King, "Three weeks ago I injected one minim of this," showing a flask of straw-coloured fluid which she held in her hand, "into this animal's leg. Its appetite fell away. It wasted gradually, till it has come to what you see. For three days it has refused all nourishment, and even within a few hours I expect—"

As she spoke the little dog opened its eyes, gave one last affectionate look at its mistress, and with a low whine stretched out its legs and was dead.

"Woe to the oppressors!" whispered the blue-stocking.

"Woe to the oppressors!" again muttered the sisters in chorus.

"Poor Toby!" said Catherine King after a pause. The sudden death of her old pet, for such the dog had been, had startled her into a slight passing emotion.

Two of the sisters observed this emotion—the faithful Eliza, who looked sympathetic, and Susan Riley, on whose face a sneering smile sat for a moment.

The blue-stocking of course noticed nothing, but continued her employment of examining and smelling at the poison bottle with her thin scientific nose.