and knees I crept toward the acacia-thicket, entered it a
little, and leaning far forward, peered. And there--at once--ten yards
to my right--I saw.

Singular to say, my agitation, instead of intensifying to the point of
apoplexy and death, now, at the actual sight, subsided to something very
like calmness. With malign and sullen eye askance I stood, and steadily
I watched her there.

* * * * *

She was on her knees, her palms lightly touching the ground, supporting
her. At the edge of the streamlet she knelt, and she was looking with a
species of startled shy astonishment at the reflexion of her face in the
limpid brown water. And I, with sullen eye askance regarded her a good
ten minutes' space.

* * * * *

I believe that her momentary laugh and sob, which I had heard, was the
result of surprise at seeing her own image; and I firmly believe, from
the expression of her face, that this was the first time that she had
seen it.

* * * * *

Never, I thought, as I stood moodily gazing, had I seen on the earth a
creature so fair (though, analysing now at leisure, I can quite conclude
that there was nothing at all remarkable about her good looks). Her
hair, somewhat lighter than auburn, and frizzy, was a real garment to
her nakedness, covering her below the hips, some strings of it falling,
too, into the water: her eyes, a dark blue, were wide in a most silly
expression of bewilderment. Even as I eyed and eyed her, she slowly
rose: and at once I saw in all her manner an air of unfamiliarity with
the world, as of one wholly at a loss what to do. Her pupils did not
seem accustomed to light; and I could swear that that was the first day
in which she had seen a tree or a stream.

Her age appeared eighteen or twenty. I guessed that she was of
Circassian blood, or, at least, origin. Her skin was whitey-brown, or
old ivory-white.

* * * * *

She stood up motionless, at a loss. She took a lock of her hair, and
drew it through her lips. There was some look in her eyes, which I
could plainly see now, somehow indicating wild hunger, though the wood
was full of food. After letting go her hair, she stood again feckless
and imbecile, with sideward-hung head, very pitiable to see I think now,
though no faintest pity touched me then. It was clear that she did not
at all know what to make of the look of thin