The Yezidee had taken one of these roots into his hands. Squatting there in the semi-dusk, he began to massage it between his long, muscular fingers, rubbing, moulding, pressing the root with caressing deliberation.
His unhurried manipulation, for a few moments, seemed to produce no result. But presently the Ginseng root became lighter in colour and more supple, yielding to his fingers, growing ivory pale, sinuously limber in a newer and more delicate symmetry.
“Look!” gasped Cleves, grasping his wife’s arm. “What is that man doing?”
“The Tchor-Dagh!” whispered Tressa. “Do you see what lies twisting there in his hands?”
The Ginseng root had become the tiny naked body of a woman—a little ivory-white creature, struggling to escape between the hands that had created it—dark, powerful, masterly hands, opening leisurely now, and releasing the living being they had fashioned.
The thing scrambled between the fingers of the Sorcerer, leaped into the grass, ran a little way and hid, crouched down, panting, almost hidden by the long grass. The shocked watchers on the wall could still see the creature. Tressa felt Cleves’ body trembling beside her. She rested a cool, steady hand on his.
“It is the Tchor-Dagh,” she breathed close to his face. “The Mongol Sorcerer is becoming formidable.”
“Oh, God!” murmured Cleves, “that thing he made is alive! I saw it. I can see it hiding there in the grass. It’s frightened—breathing! It’s alive!”
His pistol, clutched in his right hand, quivered. His wife laid her hand on it and cautiously shook her head.
“No,” she said, “that is of no use.”