o see more distinctly, and by sundry chinks she
discovered the loft door. She went to it, fumbled for the latch, and
opened it. Instantly the place was flooded with light, and turning
round, she beheld Beelzebub.

He was lying in a twisted heap in the straw, half naked, looking like
some monstrous reptile. In all her life she had never beheld anything so
horrible. His black flesh was scored over and over with long purple
stripes; even his face was swollen almost beyond recognition, and out of
it the whites of his eyes gleamed, bloodshot and terrible.

For a few moments she was possessed by an almost overpowering desire to
flee from the awful sight; and then again he stirred and whimpered, and
pity--element most divine--came to her aid.

She went to the poor, whining creature, and knelt beside him.

"See!" she said. "I have brought you some soup. Do try and take a
little! It will do you good."

There was a note of entreaty in her voice, but Beelzebub's eyes stared
as though they would leap out of his head.

He writhed away from her into the straw. "Go 'way, missis!" he hissed at
her, with lips drawn back in terror. "Go 'way, or Boss'll come and beat
Beelzebub!"

He spoke the white man's language; it was the only one he knew, but
there was something curiously unfamiliar, something almost bestial in
the way he spat his words.

Again Sybil was conscious of a wild desire to escape before sheer horror
paralysed her limbs, but she fought and conquered the impulse.

"Boss won't beat you any more," she said. "And I want you to be a good
boy and drink this before I go. I brought it myself, because I knew you
would take it to please me. You will, won't you, Beelzebub?"

But Beelzebub was not to be easily persuaded. He cried and moaned and
writhed at every word she spoke. But Sybil had mastered herself, and she
was very patient. She coaxed him as though he had been in truth the sick
dog to which Curtis had likened him. And at last, by sheer persistence,
she managed to insert the spoon between his chattering teeth.

He let her feed him then, lying passive, still whimpering between every
gulp, while she talked soothingly, scarcely knowing what she said in the
resolute effort to keep her ever-recurring horror at bay. When the bowl
was empty she rose.

"Perhaps you will go to sleep now," she said kindly. "Suppose you try!"

He stared up at her from his lair with rolling, uneasy eyes. Suddenly he
pointed to her bandaged a