There was a mocking smile on the bloated face which seemed to drive me mad.

This was the being I was helping to transfer to London, where, perhaps, for centuries to come he might, amongst its teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood, and create a new and ever-widening circle of semi-demons to batten on the helpless.
The very thought drove me mad.

A terrible desire came upon me to rid the world of such a monster.

There was no lethal weapon at hand, but I seized a shovel which the workmen had been using to fill the cases, and lifting it high, struck, with the edge downward, at the hateful face.

But as I did so the head turned, and the eyes fell upon me, with all their blaze of basilisk horror.