reflections! How swiftly would not my feet have carried me
over the restless soil, had I known that, if still within their range
when her lamp ceased to shine on the cursed spot, I should that moment
be at the mercy of such as had no mercy, the centre of a writhing heap
of hideousness, every individual of it as terrible as before it had but
seemed! Fool of ignorance, I watched the descent of the weary, solemn,
anxious moon down the widening vault above me, with no worse uneasiness
than the dread of losing my way--where as yet I had indeed no way to
lose.

I was drawing near the hills I had made my goal, and she was now not far
from their sky-line, when the soundless wallowing ceased, and the burrow
lay motionless and bare. Then I saw, slowly walking over the light soil,
the form of a woman. A white mist floated about her, now assuming, now
losing to reassume the shape of a garment, as it gathered to her or was
blown from her by a wind that dogged her steps.

She was beautiful, but with such a pride at once and misery on her
countenance that I could hardly believe what yet I saw. Up and down she
walked, vainly endeavouring to lay hold of the mist and wrap it around
her. The eyes in the beautiful face were dead, and on her left side was
a dark spot, against which she would now and then press her hand, as
if to stifle pain or sickness. Her hair hung nearly to her feet, and
sometimes the wind would so mix it with the mist that I could not
distinguish the one from the other; but when it fell gathering together
again, it shone a pale gold in the moonlight.

Suddenly pressing both hands on her heart, she fell to the ground, and
the mist rose from her and melted in the air. I ran to her. But she
began to writhe in such torture that I stood aghast. A moment more
and her legs, hurrying from her body, sped away serpents. From her
shoulders fled her arms as in terror, serpents also. Then something
flew up from her like a bat, and when I looked again, she was gone. The
ground rose like the sea in a storm; terror laid hold upon me; I turned
to the hills and ran.

I was already on the slope of their base, when the moon sank behind one
of their summits, leaving me in its shadow. Behind me rose a waste and
sickening cry, as of frustrate desire--the only sound I had heard since
the fall of the dead butterfly; it made my heart shake like a flag in
the wind. I turned, saw many dark objects bounding after me, and made
for the crest of a