"What can these persons mean?" asked Woodward; "they seem to be
concealing themselves."
"Unquestionably they do," replied the stranger; "and yet there appears
to be no pursuit after them. I certainly can give no guess as to their
object."
While attempting, as they went along, to account for the conduct of the
peasants, they were met by a female with a head of hair that was nearly
blood-red, and whose features were hideously ugly, or rather, we should
say, absolutely revolting. Her brows, which were of the same color as
the hair, were knit into a scowl, such as is occasioned by an intense
expression of hatred and malignity, yet which was rendered almost
frightful by a squint that would have disfigured the features of a
demon. Her coarse hair lay matted together in stiff, wiry waves! on each
side of her head, from whence it streamed down her shoulders, which
it covered like a cape of scarlet. As they approached each other, she
glanced at them with a look from which they could only infer that she
seemed to meditate the murder of each, and yet there was mingled with
its malignity a bitter but derisive expression that was perfectly
diabolical.
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