Had she appeared from beneath the earth we
could not have been more astonished. Narayan stared at her, opening
wide his big jet-black eyes; the Babu clicked his tongue in utter
confusion. Imagine a skeleton seven feet high, covered with brown
leather, with a dead child's tiny head stuck on its bony shoulders;
the eyes set so deep and at the same time flashing such fiendish
flames all through your body that you begin to feel your brain stop
working, your thoughts become entangled and your blood freeze in
your veins.
I describe my personal impressions, and no words of mine can do
them justice. My description is too weak.
Mr. Y - - and the colonel both grew pale under her stare, and Mr. Y - -
made a movement as if about to rise.
Needless to say that such an impression could not last. As soon
as the witch had turned her gleaming eyes to the kneeling crowd,
it vanished as swiftly as it had come. But still all our attention
was fixed on this remarkable creature.
Three hundred years old! Who can tell? Judging by her appearance,
we might as well conjecture her to be a thousand. We beheld a
genuine living mummy, or rather a mummy endowed with motion. She
seemed to have been withering since the creation. Neither time,
nor the ills of life, nor the elements could ever affect this living
statue of death.
