Janoo from the bed
was breathing seventy to the minute; Azizun held her hands before
her eyes; and old Suddhoo, fingering at the dirt that had got into
his white beard, was crying to himself. The horror of it was that
the creeping, crawly thing made no sound--only crawled! And,
remember, this lasted for ten minutes, while the terrier whined, and
Azizun shuddered, and Janoo gasped, and Suddhoo cried.
I felt the hair lift at the back of my head, and my heart thump like
a thermantidote paddle. Luckily, the seal-cutter betrayed himself
by his most impressive trick and made me calm again. After he had
finished that unspeakable triple crawl, he stretched his head away
from the floor as high as he could, and sent out a jet of fire from
his nostrils. Now, I knew how fire-spouting is done--I can do it
myself--so I felt at ease. The business was a fraud. If he had
only kept to that crawl without trying to raise the effect, goodness
knows what I might not have thought. Both the girls shrieked at the
jet of fire and the head dropped, chin down, on the floor with a
thud; the whole body lying then like a corpse with its arms trussed.
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