But this woman was not for me! She dealt me the blow of an unfeeling laugh, and disappearing, shut the door in my face.
I opened the door.

I followed her into an outhouse.

Stammering something, I found touch again with her presence, I held out my hand.
She slipped away, she was escaping me forever--when a monstrous Terror stopped her! The walls and roof drew near in a hissing crash of thunder, a dreadful hatch opened in the ceiling and all was filled with black fire.

And while I was hurled against the wall by a volcanic blast, with my eyes scorched, my ears rent, and my brain hammered, while around me the stones were pierced and crushed, I saw the woman uplifted in a fantastic shroud of black and red, to fall back in a red and white affray of clothes and linen; and something huge burst and naked, with two legs, sprang at my face and forced into my mouth the taste of blood.
I know that I cried out, hiccoughing.

Assaulted by the horrible kiss and by the vile clasp that bruised the hand I had offered to the woman's beauty--a hand still outheld--sunk in whirling smoke and ashes and the dreadful noise now majestically ebbing, I found my way out of the place, between walls that reeled as I did.