"

"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!
wen