fine, sharp-pointed needle, and a piece of a black-looking
root. He pricked this root several times with the needle, and on each
occasion there issued from it a white, glutinous liquid.

When the Strangler thought the needle sufficiently impregnated with this
juice, he bent down, and began to blow gently over the inner surface of
Djalma's arm, so as to cause a fresh sensation of coolness; then, with
the point of his needle, he traced almost imperceptibly on the skin of
the sleeping youth some mysterious and symbolical signs. All this was
performed so cleverly and the point of the needle was so fine and keen,
that Djalma did not feel the action of the acid upon the skin.

The signs, which the Strangler had traced, soon appeared on the surface,
at first in characters of a pale rose-color, as fine as a hair; but such
was the slowly corrosive power of the juice, that, as it worked and
spread beneath the skin, they would become in a few hours of a violet
red, and as apparent as they were now almost invisible.

The Strangler, having so perfectly succeeded in his project, threw a last
look of ferocious longing on the slumbering Indian, and creeping away
from the mat, regained the opening by which he had entered the cabin;
next, closely uniting the edges of the incision, so as to obviate all
suspicion, he disappeared just as the thunder began to rumble hoarsely in
the distance.[4]

[4] We read in the letters of the late Victor Jacquemont upon India, with
regard to the incredible dexterity of these men: "They crawl on the
ground, ditches, in the furrows of fields, imitate a hundred different
voices, and dissipate the effect of any accidental noise by raising the
yelp of the jackal or note of some bird--then are silent, and another
imitates the call of the same animal in the distance. They can molest a
sleeper by all sorts of noises and slight touches, and make his body and
limbs take any position which suits their purpose." Count Edward de
Warren, in his excellent work on English India, which we shall have again
occasion to quote, expresses himself in the same manner as to the
inconceivable address of the Indians: "They have the art," says he, "to
rob you, without interrupting your sleep, of the very sheet in which you
are enveloped. This is not 'a traveller's tale.' but a fact. The
movements of the bheel are those of the serpent. If you sleep in your
tent, with a servant lying across each entrance, the bheel will come and
cr