back, with his head resting on his right shoulder, and his left arm
extended; the Thug, crouching at his left side, ceased by degrees the
process of fanning; then, with incredible dexterity, he succeeded in
rolling up, above the elbow, the long wide sleeve of white muslin that
covered the left arm of the sleeper.

He next drew from the pocket of his drawers a copper box, from which he
took a very fine, sharp-pointed needle, and a piece of a black-looking
root. He pricked this root several times with the needle, and on each
occasion there issued from it a white, glutinous liquid.

When the Strangler thought the needle sufficiently impregnated with this
juice, he bent down, and began to blow gently over the inner surface of
Djalma's arm, so as to cause a fresh sensation of coolness; then, with
the point of his needle, he traced almost imperceptibly on the skin of
the sleeping youth some mysterious and symbolical signs. All this was
performed so cleverly and the point of the needle was so fine and keen,
that Djalma did not feel the action of the acid upon the skin.

The signs, which the Strangler had traced, soon appeared on the surface,
at first in characters of a pale rose-color, as fine as a hair; but such
was the slowly corrosive power of the juice, that, as it worked and
spread beneath the skin, they would become in a few hours of a violet
red, and as apparent as they were now almost invisible.

The Strangler, having so perfectly succeeded in his project, threw a last
look of ferocious longing on the slumbering Indian, and creeping away
from the mat, regained the opening by which he had entered the cabin;
next, closely uniting the edges of the incision, so as to obviate all
suspicion, he disappeared just as the thunder began to rumble hoarsely in