There was a clink of
something metallic, and then shot up a pale blue-green flame near the ground.
The light was just enough to show Azizun, pressed against one corner of the
room with the terrier between her knees; Janoo, with her hands clasped,
leaning forward as she sat on the bed; Suddhoo, face down, quivering, and the
seal-cutter.
I hope I may never see another man like that seal-cutter. He was stripped to
the waist, with a wreath of white jasmine as thick as my wrist round his
forehead, a salmon-colored loin-cloth round his middle, and a steel bangle on
each ankle. This was not awe-inspiring. It was the face of the man that turned
me cold. It was blue-gray in the first place. In the second, the eyes were
rolled back till you could only see the whites of them; and, in the third, the
face was the face of a demon--a ghoul--anything you please except of the
sleek, oily old ruffian who sat in the day-time over his turning-lathe
downstairs. He was lying on his stomach, with his arms turned and crossed
behind him, as if he had been thrown down pinioned. His head and neck were the
only parts of him off the floor. They were nearly at right angles to the body,
like the head of a cobra at spring. It was ghastly.
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