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fell from his hold through excess of horror. Now it was that those
hideous shrieks arose upon the night, which had startled from slumber
the inmates of the Rue Morgue. Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter,
habited in their night clothes, had apparently been occupied in
arranging some papers in the iron chest already mentioned, which had
been wheeled into the middle of the room. It was open, and its contents
lay beside it on the floor. The victims must have been sitting with
their backs toward the window; and, from the time elapsing between the
ingress of the beast and the screams, it seems probable that it was not
immediately perceived. The flapping-to of the shutter would naturally
have been attributed to the wind.
As the sailor looked in, the gigantic animal had seized Madame
L'Espanaye by the hair, (which was loose, as she had been combing
it,) and was flourishing the razor about her face, in imitation of the
motions of a barber. The daughter lay prostrate and motionless; she had
swooned. The screams and struggles of the old lady (during which the
hair was torn from her head) had the effect of changing the probably
pacific purposes of the Ourang-Outang into those of wrath. With one
determined sweep of its muscular arm it nearly severed her head from her
body. The sight of blood inflamed its anger into phrenzy. Gnashing its
teeth, and flashing fire from its eyes, it flew upon the body of the
girl, and imbedded its fearful talons in her throat, retaining its grasp
until she expired. Its wandering and wild glances fell at this moment
upon the head of the bed, over which the face of its master, rigid with
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