When he realised with whom he had to deal, Crimtyphon left off smiling, slipped off the couch, and threw a terrible and malignant glare into his sorb. Maskull staggered. He gathered together all the brute force of his will, and by sheer weight continued his advance. The boy shrieked and ran behind the couch, trying to get away.... His opposition suddenly collapsed. Maskull stumbled forward, recovered himself, and then vaulted clear over the high pile of mosses, to get at his antagonist.
He fell on top of him with all his bulk. Grasping his throat, he pulled his little head completely around, so that the neck was broken. Crimtyphon immediately died.
The corpse lay underneath the tree with its face upturned. Maskull viewed it attentively, and as he did so an expression of awe and wonder came into his own countenance. In the moment of death Crimtyphon's face had undergone a startling and even shocking alteration. Its personal character had wholly vanished, giving place to a vulgar, grinning mask which expressed nothing.
He did not have to search his mind long, to remember where he had seen the brother of that expression. It was identical with that on the face of the apparition at the seance, after Krag had dealt with it.