There was a pause of five full minutes after this, and the blue-
green flame died down. Janoo stooped to settle one of her anklets,
while Azizun turned her face to the wall and took the terrier in her
arms. Suddhoo put out an arm mechanically to Janoo's huqa, and she
slid it across the floor with her foot. Directly above the body and
on the wall, were a couple of flaming portraits, in stamped paper
frames, of the Queen and the Prince of Wales. They looked down on
the performance, and, to my thinking, seemed to heighten the
grotesqueness of it all.
Just when the silence was getting unendurable, the body turned over
and rolled away from the basin to the side of the room, where it lay
stomach up. There was a faint "plop" from the basin--exactly like
the noise a fish makes when it takes a fly--and the green light in
the centre revived.
I looked at the basin, and saw, bobbing in the water, the dried,
shrivelled, black head of a native baby--open eyes, open mouth and
shaved scalp. It was worse, being so very sudden, than the crawling
exhibition.
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