'
Her demeanour now instantly undergoes a change. Hitherto she has
been pouring forth a lying and wild harangue without much flurry or
agitation of manner. Her speech, it is true, has been rapid, but
her voice has never been raised to a very high key; but she now
stamps on the ground, and placing her hands on her hips, she moves
quickly to the right and left, advancing and retreating in a
sidelong direction. Her glances become more fierce and fiery, and
her coarse hair stands erect on her head, stiff as the prickles of
the hedgehog; and now she commences clapping her hands, and
uttering words of an unknown tongue, to a strange and uncouth tune.
The tawny bantling seems inspired with the same fiend, and, foaming
at the mouth, utters wild sounds, in imitation of its dam. Still
more rapid become the sidelong movements of the Gitana. Movement!
she springs, she bounds, and at every bound she is a yard above the
ground. She no longer bears the child in her bosom; she plucks it
from thence, and fiercely brandishes it aloft, till at last, with a
yell she tosses it high into the air, like a ball, and then, with
neck and head thrown back, receives it, as it falls, on her hands
and breast, extracting a cry from the terrified beholders.
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