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Vikram and the Vampire; Classic Hindu Tales of Adventure, Magic, and Romance by Sir Richard Francis Burton
page 48 of 293 (16%)
in that place is a mimosa tree, on which a body is hanging. Bring it
to me immediately."

Raja Vikram took his son's hand, unwilling to leave him in such
company; and, catching up a fire-brand, went rapidly away in the
proper direction. He was now certain that Shanta-Shil was the
anchorite who, enraged by his father, had resolved his destruction;
and his uppermost thought was a firm resolve "to breakfast upon
his enemy, ere his enemy could dine upon him." He muttered this
old saying as he went, whilst the tom-toming of the anchorite upon
the skull resounded in his ears, and the devil-crowd, which had
held its peace during his meeting with Shanta-Shil, broke out again
in an infernal din of whoops and screams, yells and laughter.

The darkness of the night was frightful, the gloom deepened till it
was hardly possible to walk. The clouds opened their fountains,
raining so that you would say they could never rain again.
Lightning blazed forth with more than the light of day, and the roar
of the thunder caused the earth to shake. Baleful gleams tipped the
black cones of the trees and fitfully scampered like fireflies over
the waste. Unclean goblins dogged the travellers and threw
themselves upon the ground in their path and obstructed them in a
thousand different ways. Huge snakes, whose mouths distilled
blood and black venom, kept clinging around their legs in the
roughest part of the road, till they were persuaded to loose their
hold either by the sword or by reciting a spell. In fact, there were
so many horrors and such a tumult and noise that even a brave man
would have faltered, yet the king kept on his way.

At length having passed over, somehow or other, a very difficult
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