seem accustomed to light; and I could swear that that was the first day
in which she had seen a tree or a stream.

Her age appeared eighteen or twenty. I guessed that she was of
Circassian blood, or, at least, origin. Her skin was whitey-brown, or
old ivory-white.

* * * * *

She stood up motionless, at a loss. She took a lock of her hair, and
drew it through her lips. There was some look in her eyes, which I
could plainly see now, somehow indicating wild hunger, though the wood
was full of food. After letting go her hair, she stood again feckless
and imbecile, with sideward-hung head, very pitiable to see I think now,
though no faintest pity touched me then. It was clear that she did not
at all know what to make of the look of things. Finally, she sat on a
moss-bank, reached and took a musk-rose on her palm, and looked
hopelessly at it.

* * * * *

One minute after my first actual sight of her my extravagance of
agitation, I say, died down to something like calm. The earth was mine
by old right: I felt that: and this creature a mere slave upon whom,
without heat or haste, I might perform my will: and for some time I
stood, coolly enough considering what that will should be.

I had at my girdle the little cangiar, with silver handle encrusted with
coral, and curved blade six inches long, damascened in gold, and sharp
as a razor; the blackest and the basest of all the devils of the Pit was