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ng things before, my father, else would I fear greatly now. Yet let us talk face to face." For a moment there was no reply, then with startling suddenness a light flashed forth. On the floor just in front of me burned a small fore-- throwing a ball of green misty light upon the tomb-like blackness. Within this I could make out the figure of a man--a very old man. A man, did I say? _Whau_! It was more like that of a monkey, or a great crouching spider. The limbs were thin as the shaft of a spear-- too withered and dried even to show the wrinkles of age; the face, too, was like a dry piece of skin spread over the skull; and on the head a wisp or two of white hair. If it was a man, in truth he must have lived nearly as long as the world itself. His hands, which were like the claws of a bird, were spread over the fire, which burned not upon the floor, but in a large clay bowl. Into this he seemed to be sprinkling some kind of powder which caused the green flame to leap and hiss. But now another sound stopped my ears; an awesome and terrible sound--a sound full of fear and agony indescribable--for it was again the death-yell, such as I had heard in the darkness of the night when the slave, Suru, looked upon the Red Terror and parted with life. And now it was not night, but broad, clear, golden day--outside the cavern at least--and the other slave had parted with life by the same dread means; and I--while this thing of horror was abroad--this monster I had come to slay--here was I imprisoned within the heart of the earth--held there at the will of a being who seemed less a man than the ghost of one who had died while the world was yet young. I leaped to my feet. "Ha, ha, ha! Sit again, induna of the King, who knows not fear," cackled the shrivelled old monkey before me. "Ha, ha, ha! But now I think thou art afraid." "Afraid or not, thou evil scorpion--thou creeping wizard--if I stand not in the light of day before I strike the ground with my foot three times, this spear shall see if there be any blood to run from thy dried-up old heart." And, raising the blade aloft, I struck the ground once with my foot. "Ha, ha, ha!" cackled the wizard again, still scattering his magic powder into the fire. "Look again, Untuswa; look again." I did look again, I could not do otherwise, and then I stood as one turned into stone--with the spear still uplifted--unable to move hand or foot, as I glared in front of me
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