A WITCH. 99 



nose with a short chain to it, from which hangs a gold 

 plate the size of a crown-piece. 



The two planks which serve for a bridge across the 

 stream are each carved with a footprint. The river here 

 and its tributary torrents are full of roughly squared trees 

 and big baulks of timber, floating on their way to the 

 plains : and they say a man was drowned through mistak- 

 ing one of these for the footpath of the bridge. So the 

 village authorities have since -ear (or rather foot-) marked 

 the planks, to prevent a similar accident. 



A flight of stone slabs leads over a spur and down the 

 other side to a grass plain, hemmed in on all sides by the 

 mountains. Here we camp for the night. The shikaris 

 and servants arrive, full of stories of the inhabitants of 

 this village, whom they declare to be dangerous magicians. 

 My friend at the mill is a witch of fearful powers and 

 possessed of the evil eye. All this is said with so much 

 gravity and evident conviction, that we feel quit a flutter 

 of excitement. Perhaps we have reached the East of 

 one's childhood, and may yet witness some of the sorceries 

 of the Arabian Nia;hts ! 



Khadra, always ready with an apt story, relates how 



his late master was driven mad by the spells of witches 



and evil spirits, and eventually met a gruesome death in 



the mountains. As only two days ago he killed him by 



a sunstroke, aggravated by sph'its of quite another de- 



H 2 



