"Look there, Ormiston! There lies the very face that sorceress
showed me, fifteen minutes ago, in her infernal caldron! I would
know it at the other end of the world!";
"Are you sure?" said Ormiston, glancing again with new curiosity
at the marble face. "I never saw anything half so beautiful in
all my life; but you see she is dead of the plague."
"Dead? she cannot be! Nothing so perfect could die!"
"Look there," said Ormiston pointing to the plague-spot. "There
is the fatal token! For Heaven's sake let us get out of this, or
we will share the same fate before morning!"
But Sir Norman did not move - could not move; he stood there
rooted to the spot by the spell of that lovely, lifeless face.
Usually the plague left its victims hideous, ghastly, discolored,
and covered with blotches; but in this case then was nothing to
mar the perfect beauty of the satin-smooth skin, but that one
dreadful mark.
There Sir Norman stood in his trance, as motionless as if some
genii out of the "Arabian Nights" had suddenly turned him into
stone (a trick they were much addicted to), and destined him to
remain there an ornamental fixture for ever.
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