“‘My God!’ I heard Baumoff whispering in the half-darkness.

• +.Experimental
• +.Discord downtempo
• +.Not Cure.

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“Suddenly, Baumoff did something that rather sickened me. He drew his wrist away from me, and reached out to a small metal box, such as one sterilizes a hypodermic in. He opened the box, and took out four rather curious looking drawing-pins, I might call them, only they had spikes of steel fully an inch long, whilst all around the rim of the heads (which were also of steel)there projected downward, parallel with the central spike, a number of shorter spikes, maybe an eighth of an inch long. “He kicked off his pumps; then stooped and slipped his socks off, and I saw that he was wearing a pair of linen inner-socks. “‘Antiseptic!’ he said, glancing at me. ‘Got my feet ready before you came. No use running unnecessary risks.’ He gasped as he spoke. Then he took one of the curious little steel spikes. “‘I’ve sterilized them,’ he said; and therewith, with deliberation, he pressed it in up to the head into his foot between the second and third branches of the dorsal artery. “‘For God’s sake, what are you doing!’ I said, half rising from my chair. “‘Sit down!’ he said, in a grim sort of voice. ‘I can’t have any interference. I want you simply to observe; keep note of everything. You ought to thank me for the chance, instead of worrying me, when you know I shall go my own way all the time.’ “As he spoke, he had pressed in the second of the steel spikes up to the hilt in his left instep, taking the same precaution to avoid the arteries. Not a groan had come from him; only his face betrayed the effect of this additional distress." Hodgson, William Hope.