His hair waving in the wind and his mouth covered
with foam; to see him bathing in the blood of the sacrificed animal,
mixing it with his own, was more than I could bear. I felt as if
hallucinated, I fancied I also was spinning round.... "
Sham Rao stopped abruptly, struck dumb. Kangalim stood before us!
Her appearance was so unexpected that we all felt embarrassed.
Carried away by Sham Rao's description, we had noticed neither how
nor whence she came. 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. The all-destroying hand of time had touched her
and stopped short. Time could do no more, and so had left her.
And with all this, not a single grey hair. Her long black locks
shone with a greenish sheen, and fell in heavy masses down to her knees.
To my great shame, I must confess that a disgusting reminiscence
flashed into my memory. I thought about the hair and the nails of
corpses growing in the graves, and tried to examine the nails of
the old woman.
Meanwhile, she stood motionless as if suddenly transformed into
an ugly idol. In one hand she held a dish with a piece of burning
camphor, in the other a handful of rice, and she never removed her
burning eyes from the crowd. The pale yellow flame of the camphor
flickered in the wind, and lit up her deathlike head, almost
touching her chin; but she paid no heed to it. Her neck, as
wrinkled as a mushroom, as thin as a stick, was surrounded by
three rows of golden medallions. Her head was adorned with a
golden snake. Her grotesque, hardly human body was covered by a
piece of saffron-yellow muslin.
The demoniac little girls raised their heads from be-neath the
leaves, and set up a prolonged animal-like howl. Their example
was followed by the old man, who lay exhausted by his frantic dance.
The witch tossed her head convulsively, and began her invocations,
rising on tiptoe, as if moved by some external force.
"The goddess, one of the seven sisters, begins to take possession
of her," whispered Sham Rao, not even thinking of wiping away the
big drops of sweat that streamed from his brow. "Look, look at her!"
This advice was quite superfluous. We were looking at her, and
at nothing else.
At first, the movements of the witch were slow, unequal, somewhat
convulsive; then, gradually, they became less angular; at last,
as if catching the cadence of the drums, leaning all her long body
forward, and writhing like an eel, she rushed round and round the
blazing bonfire. A dry leaf caught in a hurricane could not fly
swifter. Her bare bony feet trod noiselessly on the rocky ground.
The long locks of her hair flew round her like snakes, lashing the
spectators, who knelt, stretching their trembling arms towards her,
and writhing as if they were alive. Whoever was touched by one of
this Fury's black curls, fell down on the ground, overcome with
happiness, shouting thanks to the goddess, and considering himself
blessed for ever. It was not human hair that touched the happy
elect, it was the goddess herself, one of the seven. Swifter and
swifter fly her decrepit legs; the young, vigorous hands of the
drummer can hardly follow her. But she does not think of catching
the measure of his music; she rushes, she flies forward. Staring
with her expressionless, motionless orbs at something before her,
at something that is not visible to our mortal eyes, she hardly
glances at her worshippers; then her look becomes full of fire;
and whoever she looks at feels burned through to the marrow of
his bones. At every glance she throws a few grains of rice.
The small handful seems inexhaustible, as if the wrinkled palm
contained the bottomless bag of Prince Fortunatus.
Suddenly she stops as if thunderstruck.
The mad race round the bonfire had lasted twelve minutes, but we
looked in vain for a trace of fatigue on the deathlike face of
the witch. She stopped only for a moment, just the necessary time
for the goddess to release her. As soon as she felt free, by a
single effort she jumped over the fire and plunged into the deep
tank by the portico. This time, she plunged only once; and whilst
she stayed under the water, the second sister-goddess entered her
body.
