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, the