Page:Thotharomance00nichgoog.djvu/99

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94
THOTH.

served curtains, and stopping before one of them, Thoth drew it aside and revealed a small cell.

Crouching at the back, like a terrified animal, lay a woman, scantily clad in a tattered garment made of coarse hair.

Her figure seemed robust and healthy, but was rendered hideous by glaring streaks of paint and devices of unclean animals branded on the skin. Still more horrible was her head. She was evidently young, but she had no ears, no eyebrows, no hair. Her mouth had been distended, and her teeth were sharpened to fine points. She grovelled on the ground, as if awaiting torture, and Daphne's heart stood still with horror and indignation.

Suddenly Thoth addressed the creature in an unknown tongue, and after repeating the same thing over and over again, apparently made the woman understand and believe what