"No, chloroform," Learmont tells her, pronouncing the name clearly and emphatically. He takes a gauze mask from his case and, fixing this to the end of his inhaler's tube, straps it round Mrs. Carrefax's face. He opens a valve on the canister's neck; a long, slow hissing seeps out as the gas makes it way along the canvas corridor towards her mouth and nose. The muscles in Mrs. Carrefax's cheeks slacken; her pupils dilate. After half a minute Learmont closes the valve and unstraps the mask. A second contraction soon follows; again the woman's body seizes up, but her face registers less pain. He reaffixes the mask, administers more chloroform and watches the silent features further slacken and dilate beneath their gag. When he removes it again, she begins to murmur:
"...un fleuve...un serpent d'eau noir..."
[C, McCarthy, T.]
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