The Steam-Packet: A Tale of the River and the Ocean — page 267: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

202 THE STEAM PACKET. stones shake and totter. And now the conflict begins—it is hand to hand, and foot to foot: on, on go the assailants, like a whirlwind ! "Tis done :—see yon crowd of trembling and pallid beings—amongst them are faces that are familiar to you—there, there is your father, and there also is your brother!” The sorceress had commenced this harangue in a low tone, which imitated the distant murmurs of a multitude: then, as she seemed to witness each progressive incident to which she alluded, her voice grew louder—and her utterance more rapid ; her eyes rolled, and she waved her wand more and more rapidly, pacing the dazs at the same time with steps increasing in speed in unison with the exaltation of her voice ; until at length she strode backwards and forwards like a tigress in her - den, while her manner grew wild, her eyes dilated with apparent frenzy, her bosom heaved convulsively, and her naked white arms waved over ‘her head, brandishing the book and the wand, and giving her the air of an inspired Druidess, or of Cassandra raving. Henri and Pauline gazed and listened with breathless attention; and when the sorceress concluded her remarkable address, accompanying each sentence with the befitting gesticulation, and pointing towards the further endof the room, — as she exclaimed ‘‘ There is your father ! and there also is your brother!” Pauline turned round to see if they were not really there. But the eyes of the sorceress appeared to be glaring upon vacancy ; and Pauline, whose nerves were worked up to the highest pitch, experienced a sud- den reaction which threw her fainting into her husband’s arms. Mademoiselle Lenormand instantly threw aside her wand and her book, and hurried forward to administer aid to Madame Alvimar. Taking a bottle of some powerful essence from the table, she applied it to Pauline’s nostrils, and immediate signs of life were the result. In a few moments Pauline was perfectly restored; and the sorceress then seated herself at the table covered with the implements of her art. Mademoiselle Lenormand took an egg and broke it into a wine- glass: she then cut the yolk with a penknife, and watched the yellow commingling with the white for some minutes. She next filled a large cup with coffee from the silver urn over the spirit-lamp; and then again she poured the reeking liquid into a flat silver dish. There she watched the motion of the bubbles, the course which the current took in turning round and round, and the shape of the white foam upon the surface. ‘‘ Pauline,’ she exclaimed, when these preparations were complete, ‘in what month were you born?” The question was answered; and the sorceress then inquired— ‘What is your age? What colour do you prefer in regard to dress ? Gomicbooks: co