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Was he busy at his magic? Could those spells be enlisted on her side? Then, under an ashen sky of autumn, as night was creeping in, she saw the Arabian ascending the hill to the castle. His tall figure, as fleshless as a mummy's, was swathed in a white robe like a winding sheet; his beaked face and hollow eye-sockets were like a vision of Death.
And this man had died very suddenly, for the skeleton lay face down one bony arm folded under him, the other wide-tossed, and the skull, shattered behind, showed a small, round hole just above and betwixt the cavernous eye-sockets; about the ribs were the mouldering remains of a leathern jerkin girt by a broad belt wherein was a knife and a rusty sword; but that which pleased me mightily was a thing still fast-clenched in these bony fingers, and this no other than a heavy hatchet.
Don't they say I'm ruined?" "Yes, John." He lay silent for several minutes. Then he asked hesitatingly: "And when do you go back West?" "I have come to stay," she replied. Neither in her voice nor in her face was there a hint of what those five words meant to her. He closed his eyes again. Presently a tear slid from under each lid and stood in the deep, wasted hollows of his eye-sockets.
Jest look at it. Say, can't you fellers see, or are you blind? She ain't blind. She can see. She's seen wot's ther'. It's a death's head. Gold? Gee, I tell you it's a death's head! Look at them eye-sockets," he cried, pointing at the curious moulding of the nugget. "Ther's the nose bones, an' the jaw. Look at them teeth, too, all gold-filled, same as if a dentist had done 'em."
As she passed in front of the boat-houses, she had to step over oars, tar-barrels, old swabs, and all sorts of rubbish, which was scattered among the boats. All around lay the claws of crabs and the half-decayed heads of codfish, in which the gorged and sleepy flies were crawling in and out of the eye-sockets.
His empty eye-sockets seemed to stare at me reproachfully, as though they asked me why I remained alive when he and all his brethren were dead. I echoed the question in my own mind. Why of that great company did I alone remain alive? An answer seemed to rise within me: That I might be one of the instruments of vengeance upon that devilish murderer, Dingaan.
Then, to the left of the royal musician there was another man, bearded, with a walnut-stained face, the eye-sockets vacant and covered by round spectacles; on his head were a diadem and a tiara, in his hands a chalice and a paten, a censer and a loaf; while to the right of the other sovereign who held the sceptre, a still more harassing shape came forth against the blue background of the sword a sort of oriental brigand, escaped perhaps from the prison cells of Persepolis or Susa, a bandit as it seemed, wearing a little scarlet cap edged with yellow, in shape like an inverted jam-pot, and a tan-coloured gown with white stripes on the skirt; and this clumsy and ferocious personage bore a green palm and a book.
And Peter's patience and faith, being tested in like manner and in like manner standing the test, were deepened and confirmed. Depend upon it, he was a better man all his days, because he had been brought close up to Death and looked it in the fleshless eye-sockets, unwinking and unterrified.
Dark shadows lay on the road, and the high structures which shut it in like cliffs seemed to tower to the sky. The lonely girl's heart beat fast with fears as she stole along, close under the wall, from which a warm vapor breathed on her after the recent rain. The black circles which seemed to stare at her like dark, hollow eye-sockets from the wall of the stadium, were the windows of the stables.
"You'll be doing that for some boys of your own by and by," said Miss Pray, intending to have a cheerful evening. Vesty grew sweet and pale; she shook her head. Her dark eye-sockets had a look, I thought, as though she had been ill and fasting. I mused in the firelight.
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