He was tall and bony, immensely powerful, and his black skin showed with a grayish shine upon it through the rents in his rags.  His gray-black, horny toes protruded through what once had been shoes, and a shapeless, colorless felt hat covered his bullet head.  His corded black arms emerged from the torn sleeves of his checked shirt, and his hairy chest was naked.  There came from him an indescribable reek of tobacco, whisky, filthy clothes, and the beastlike odor of an unclean body.  He was beardless, and his gorilla-like nostrils twitched, his forehead wrinkled.  His eyes were mere pin-points, with a sort of red glare far back in them; his mouth was like a dirty red muzzle.  He was a prowling tramp, of the worst sort.

Involuntarily he stopped in his tracks as I faced him, his hands hanging loosely at his sides.  His eyes swept greedily over me—­silver mesh-purse, wrist-watch, the brooch at my throat, the rings on my fingers.

“Whut yuh doin’ hyuh, w’ite lady?” he asked in a thick voice, and grinned.  And quite suddenly such a fear as I had not dreamed could be felt by a mortal took me by the heart and squeezed it as with an iron hand.

“Whut foh yuh come by mah field, lil w’ite lady?” he purred.  “Ah’m takin’ lil snooze in de ditch grass, an’ dey yuh comes, wakin’ me up!  Whut yuh wake me up for, w’ite gal?” Leering, he began with a gliding, stealthy movement to advance.

“Stop!” cried I, in a voice that wasn’t mine, it was so sharp and thin and reedy.  “Go back—­where you came from!  Don’t you dare to take another step!  Go back!”

The hands hooked into outstretched claws.  His head sunk between his shoulders.  Of the eyes, only red pin-points showed in the twitching face.  I stood stone-still, struck into utter immobility.  My brain was trying to urge me to fly, fly!  This is the Black Death, Sophy! the Black Death!

He, too, stood of a sudden stone-still, as if rooted to the ground.  His eyes widened, and stared, as if he saw something over and beyond me.  I didn’t dare turn my head.  It might be a trick, to divert attention for a fatal second.

The claws clenched into balled fists, the lips drew back, showing blackened and decayed teeth.  Bristling like an aroused beast, his forehead wrinkling, his nostrils twitching, he made an inarticulate, growling, brute-like noise in his throat.  His head twisted sideways.  Of a sudden the sweat burst out upon his face, and he began to back away, warily.

And then something swift and dark sped by, bounding on light and flying feet; something that must have come from my forest.  It was The Jinnee!  God be praised, it was The Jinnee, his dark robe giving an odd effect of flying, his eyes living vengeance, his face like Fate carved in ebony.

I saw him leap, and close in upon the horror; I heard a sort of wolfish yapping.  The Black Death disappeared.  And then I, too, was falling, falling into infinite blackness and blankness, with one red flash when I struck my head.