and her whole appearance seemed to speak “variety of wretchedness.” She approached the stranger, eyed him with a look of intense malice, and said—
“Who are you, son of a dog? How came you within these walls?”
“I am,” replied the stranger, “an officer of the imperial army, who, upon the issue of an unsuccessful encounter with your insurgent fanatics, have fallen into their hands. How I came within these walls, they will best explain to you.”
“Hah! an enemy! You shall soon learn how we treat enemies when they profane our sanctuary. Would you save your life!”
“I have no desire to die.”
“Ay, the burden of every coward’s song. Fall down, then, at our feet, and hail us Queen of the Moguls.”
“The Moguls were never ruled by women.”
“Say you so? We shall see. Bind him to yonder statue.”
Her order was speedily executed, and the hag began to prepare the last dish of the evening’s refection. This was a medley, fit only for the stomachs of ghoules or devils. It happened to be a certain day of the moon, and on this day the same mixture was always placed before her retainers. The first thing she ordered to be brought, when about to make her infernal stew, was the trunk of a human body, which had been conveyed for this very purpose from the scene of slaughter. She deliberately cut large pieces from the fleshy parts; these she divided into small squares, with slow, calculating precision, and then placed them severally in a human skull that stood beside her. Having covered them with a layer of herbs that had been gathered under certain influences of the moon, she took from a covered basket a hooded snake, from the jaws of which the poisonous fangs had been previously extracted, and placed it alive in the skull. To this she added the legs of a frog, the tail of a lizard, the head of a bat, and the claws of an owl. Having placed the skull, with its contents, in a capacious earthen vessel, in which there was a sufficient quantity of water to complete the dressing, she put it upon the fire, and watched it with eager anxiety, muttering to herself a sort of mystical chant during the entire period of the cooking. The smoke ascended in volumes from the flame over which this disgusting mess was hanging, and soon filled the whole chamber with a thick and suffocating cloud.
The mode of hanging the earthenware vessel over the blaze was as remarkable as any part of the singular process. Two fakeers stood on either side of the fire, an iron bar resting upon the shoulders of each, from which the mysterious stew was suspended above the flame.