the divan, and on one of them lay a golden
salver, bearing a crystal jar of strawberry preserves, and a glass half
full of water, with a gold spoon in it. In the right-hand corner of the
divan was the Khanum herself.

The old lady's dress was in striking contrast to her surroundings. She
wore a shapeless, snuff-colored gown, very loose and only slightly
gathered at the waist. As she sat propped among her cushions, her feet
entirely concealed beneath her, she seemed to be inclosed in a brown
bag, from which emerged her head and hands. The latter were very small
and white, and might well have belonged to a young woman, but her head
was that of an aged crone. Balsamides was amazed at her ugliness and the
extraordinary expression of her features. She wore no head-dress, and
the bit of gauze about her throat, which properly speaking should have
concealed her face, did not even cover her chin. Her hair was perfectly
black in spite of her age, and being cut so short as only to reach the
collar of her gown, hung straight down like that of an American Indian,
brushed back from the high yellow forehead, and falling like stiff
horse-hair over her ears and cheeks when she bent forward. Her eyes,
too, were black, and were set so near together as to give her a very
disagreeable expression, while the heavy eyebrows rose slightly from the
nose towards the temples. The nose was long, straight, and pointed, but
very thin; and the nostrils, which had once been broad and sensitive,
were pinched and wrinkled by old age and the play of strong emotions.
Her cheeks were hollowed and yellow, as the warped parchment cover of an
old manuscript, seamed with furrows in all directions, so that the
slightest motion of her face destroyed one set of deep-traced lines only
to exhibit another new and unexpected network of wrinkles. The upper lip
was long and drawn down, while the thin mouth curved upwards at the
corners in a disagreeable smile, something like that which seems to play
about the long, slit lips of a dead viper. This unpleasant combination
of features was terminated by a short but prominent chin, indicating a
determined and undeviating will. The ghastly yellow color of her face
made the unnatural brightness of her beady eyes more extraordinary
still.

To judge from her appearance, she had not long to live, and Balsamides
realized the fact as soon as he was in her presence. It was not a fever;
it was no sudden illness which had attacked he