She was on her knees, her palms lightly touching the ground, supporting her.  At the edge of the streamlet she knelt, and she was looking with a species of startled shy astonishment at the reflexion of her face in the limpid brown water.  And I, with sullen eye askance regarded her a good ten minutes’ space.

* * * * *

I believe that her momentary laugh and sob, which I had heard, was the result of surprise at seeing her own image; and I firmly believe, from the expression of her face, that this was the first time that she had seen it.

* * * * *

Never, I thought, as I stood moodily gazing, had I seen on the earth a creature so fair (though, analysing now at leisure, I can quite conclude that there was nothing at all remarkable about her good looks).  Her hair, somewhat lighter than auburn, and frizzy, was a real garment to her nakedness, covering her below the hips, some strings of it falling, too, into the water:  her eyes, a dark blue, were wide in a most silly expression of bewilderment.  Even as I eyed and eyed her, she slowly rose:  and at once I saw in all her manner an air of unfamiliarity with the world, as of one wholly at a loss what to do.  Her pupils did not seem accustomed to light; and I could swear that that was the first day in which she had seen a tree or a stream.

Her age appeared eighteen or twenty.  I guessed that she was of Circassian blood, or, at least, origin.  Her skin was whitey-brown, or old ivory-white.

* * * * *

She stood up motionless, at a loss.  She took a lock of her hair, and drew it through her lips.  There was some look in her eyes, which I could plainly see now, somehow indicating wild hunger, though the wood was full of food.  After letting go her hair, she stood again feckless and imbecile, with sideward-hung head, very pitiable to see I think now, though no faintest pity touched me then.  It was clear that she did not at all know what to make of the look of things.  Finally, she sat on a moss-bank, reached and took a musk-rose on her palm, and looked hopelessly at it.

* * * * *

One minute after my first actual sight of her my extravagance of agitation, I say, died down to something like calm.  The earth was mine by old right:  I felt that:  and this creature a mere slave upon whom, without heat or haste, I might perform my will:  and for some time I stood, coolly enough considering what that will should be.

I had at my girdle the little cangiar, with silver handle encrusted with coral, and curved blade six inches long, damascened in gold, and sharp as a razor; the blackest and the basest of all the devils of the Pit was whispering in my breast with calm persistence:  ‘Kill, kill—­and eat.’