Sâkai hag. She was stark naked, and in the clear moonlight I could see her long
pendulous breasts, and the creases all over her withered old hide, which were
wrinkles filled with dirt. Her hair hung about her face in great matted locks,
falling forward as she bent above the grave, and her eyes glinted through the elf-
locks like those of some unclean animal. Her long fingers, with nails like claws
to them, were tearing at the dirt of the grave, and the exertion made her sweat so
that her body shone in the moonlight.
'"Juggins," whispered I, "here is some one else who wants this precious baby of
yours for a specimen."
'I felt him jump to his feet, but I clutched at him, and pulled him back.
'"Keep still, man!" I whispered. "Let us see what the old hag is doing. It is not
the brat's mother, is it?"
'"No," whispered Juggins, "this is an older woman. What a ghoul it is!"
'Then we were silent again. Where we squatted we were hidden from the hag by
a few tufts of rank lâlang grass, and the shadow from the jungle also covered us.
Even if we had been in the open, I doubt whether that old woman would have
seen us, she was so eagerly intent upon her work. For five minutes or more—I
know it seemed an age to me at the time—we sat there watching her scrape, and
tear, and scratch at the earth of the grave, and all the while her lips kept going
like a shivering man's teeth, though no sound, that I could hear, came from them.
At length she got down to the corpse, and I saw her draw the bark wrapper out of
the grave, and take the baby's body out of it. Then she sat back on her heels, and
threw her head up, just like a dog, and bayed at the moon. She did it three times,
and I do not know what there was in the sound that jangled up one's nerves, but
each time I heard it my hair fairly lifted. Then she laid the little body down in a
position that seemed to have something to do with the points of the compass, for
she took a long time arranging it before she was satisfied with the direction of its
head and feet.
'Then she got up and began to dance round and round the grave. It was not a
pretty sight, out there in the semi-darkness, and miles away from every one and
everything, to watch this abominable old hag capering uncleanly, while those
restless, noiseless lips of hers called upon all the devils in Hell, in words that we
could not hear. Juggins pushed harder against me than ever, and his hand on my
arm gripped tighter and tighter. I looked at his face, and saw that it was as white
as chalk, and I daresay mine was not much better. It does not sound much, as I