‘I will not believe it. By Alla! thou liest, nurse; she was better, and I—I hate her. Come, here is gold for thee—thou lovest it—come!’ And she disengaged a gold ring from her wrist, and forced it upon the other’s, while she seized her arm and dragged her along.
‘My blessings on thee, Khanum—the blessings of the old woman who is nigh death!’ she said; ‘this will feed a hundred Fakeers, this will purchase a hundred readings of the Koran for me when I am dead; my blessings on thee, daughter!’
‘Come quickly!’ cried Kummoo, ‘come quickly! why tarriest thou—the materials have been ready these many days. Enter now—I follow thee.’
She did so, and closed the door.
The room was the one we have before mentioned; a magic figure, of a different form to the first, was drawn on the clay floor—a square, divided into compartments, with figures in each, or marks intended to represent them. The old hag as she entered made three low obeisances to each side of the figure, and, placing herself at the head, began a low monotonous chant, which was intended to be a chapter of the Koran read backwards, rocking the while to and fro; it was, in truth, mere unintelligible gibberish. After awhile she untied some earth and ashes from the corner of her doputta, and pouring water upon them, gradually increased her tone, kneading the mixture into a stiff clay. Soon she changed the incantation into the names of the many demons she had invoked before, and her tones became wilder and wilder as she formed the clay into the rude image of a human being. This done, she rested awhile, mumbling to herself with her eyes shut; and at length, taking from her cloth a number of small pegs of wood, she drove them into the head, the arms, the body, the legs and feet of the image, accompanying each with curses at which even Kummoo shuddered.
‘Hast thou the shroud, daughter?’ she said as she finished; ‘behold the image is ready; a bonny image it is—the ashes of a kafir Hindoo, burned at the full moon, the earth of the grave of a woman who died in child-birth—I had much ado to find one—kneaded together. Hast thou the shroud?’
‘Here it is, mother.’
‘Ay, that will do, ’tis like a pretty corpse now. Take it away with thee, fair one, to thy home, to the embraces of thy lord. Mark! in three days there will be a young corpse in thy house, and remember to call me to the washing—’tis an old woman’s business, and I love to look on such. Ha! ha! away! delay not—place it at her door, its head to the east, that she may see it in the morning ere the sun rises—away!’
Kummoo’s brain was in a whirl, and she obeyed almost without speaking in reply; she hurried home through the thronged streets, little heeding any one—not even the shot which whistled above—and she reached her abode undiscovered.