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Plunging after him into what seemed to be a half subterranean passage, we were led to the foot of a tall ladder
leading to a chamber under the roof. We scrambled up after our guide, and at the top we found ourselves in a
wretched garret of moderate size, with bare walls and destitute of furniture. The floor was carpeted with a
thick layer of dust, and cobwebs festooned the walls in neglected confusion. In the corner we saw something
that I at first mistook for a bundle of old rags; but the heap presently moved and got on its legs, advanced to
the middle of the room and stood before us, the most extraordinary looking creature that I ever beheld. Its sex
was female, but whether she was a woman or child it was impossible to decide. She was a hideous-looking
dwarf, with an enormous head, the shoulders of a grenadier, with a waist in proportion; the whole supported
by two short, lean, spider-like legs that seemed unequal to the task of bearing the weight of the monstrous
body. She had a grinning countenance like the face of a satyr, and it was ornamented with letters and signs
from the Koran painted in bright yellow. On her forehead was a blood-red crescent; her head was crowned
with a dusty tarbouche, or fez; her legs were arrayed in large Turkish trousers, and some dirty white muslin
wrapped round her body barely sufficed to conceal its hideous deformities. This creature rather let herself
THE LUMINOUS SHIELD 51
 Nightmare Tales
drop than sat down in the middle of the floor, and as her weight descended on the rickety boards it sent up a
cloud of dust that set us coughing and sneezing. This was the famous Tatmos known as the Damascus oracle!
Without losing time in idle talk, the dervish produced a piece of chalk, and traced around the girl a circle
about six feet in diameter. Fetching from behind the door twelve small copper lamps which he filled with
some dark liquid from a small bottle which he drew from his bosom, he placed them symmetrically around
the magic circle. He then broke a chip of wood from a panel of the half ruined door, which bore the marks of
many a similar depredation, and, holding the chip between his thumb and finger he began blowing on it at
regular intervals, alternating the blowing with mutterings of some kind of weird incantation, till suddenly,
and without any apparent cause for its ignition, there appeared a spark on the chip and it blazed up like a dry
match. The dervish then lit the twelve lamps at this self-generated flame.
During this process, Tatmos, who had sat till then altogether unconcerned and motionless, removed her
yellow slippers from her naked feet, and throwing them into a corner, disclosed as an additional beauty, a
sixth toe on each deformed foot. The dervish now reached over into the circle and seizing the dwarf's ankles
gave her a jerk, as if he had been lifting a bag of corn, and raised her clear off the ground, then, stepping back
a pace, held her head downward. He shook her as one might a sack to pack its contents, the motion being
regular and easy. He then swung her to and fro like a pendulum until the necessary momentum was acquired,
when letting go one foot and seizing the other with both hands, he made a powerful muscular effort and
whirled her round in the air as if she had been an Indian club.
My companion had shrunk back in alarm to the farthest corner. Round and round the dervish swung his living
burden, she remained perfectly passive. The motion increased in rapidity until the eye could hardly follow the
body in its circuit. This continued for perhaps two or three minutes, until, gradually slackening the motion he
at length stopped it altogether, and in an instant had landed the girl on her knees in the middle of the lamp-lit
circle. Such was the Eastern mode of mesmerization as practised among the dervishes.
And now the dwarf seemed entirely oblivious of external objects and in a deep trance. Her head and jaw
dropped on her chest, her eyes were glazed and staring, and altogether her appearance was even more hideous
than before. The dervish then carefully closed the shutters of the only window, and we should have been in
total obscurity but that there was a hole bored in it, through which entered a bright ray of sunlight that shot
through the darkened room and shone upon the girl. He arranged her drooping head so that the ray should fall
upon the crown, after which, motioning us to remain silent, he folded his arms upon his bosom, and, fixing
his gaze upon the bright spot, became as motionless as a stone image. I, too, riveted my eyes on the same
spot, wondering what was to happen next, and how all this strange ceremony was to help me to find Ralph.
By degrees, the bright patch, as if it had drawn through the sunbeam a greater splendour from without and
condensed it within its own area, shaped itself into a brilliant star, sending out rays in every direction as from
a focus.
A curious optical effect then occurred: the room, which had been previously partially lighted by the sunbeam,
grew darker and darker as the star increased in radiance, until we found ourselves in an Egyptian gloom. The
star twinkled, trembled and turned, at first with a slow gyratory motion, then faster and faster, increasing its
circumference at every rotation until it formed a brilliant disk, and we no longer saw the dwarf, who seemed
absorbed into its light. Having gradually attained an extremely rapid velocity, as the girl had done when
whirled by the dervish, the motion began to decrease and finally merged into a feeble vibration, like the
shimmer of moonbeams on rippling water. Then it flickered for a moment longer, emitted a few last flashes,
and assuming the density and irridescence of an immense opal, it remained motionless. The disk now radiated [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]