She
realized its malice and its hatred, and an intense anger and hatred took
possession of her. She had always laughed at such things even when
thrilled by wonder and manufactured terrors. But now there was a sense of
conflict, of evil, of the indefinable things in which so many believed.
Suddenly she remembered an ancient Sage of her tribe, who, proficient in
mysteries and secret rites gathered from nations as old as Phoenicia and
Egypt and as modern as Switzerland, held the Romanys of the world in awe,
for his fame had travelled where he could not follow. To Fleda in her
earliest days he had been like one inspired, and as she now stood facing
the intangible Thing, she recalled an exorcism which the Sage had recited
to her, when he had sufficiently startled her senses by tales of the
Between World. This exorcism was, as he had told her, more powerful than
that which the Christian exorcists used, and the symbol of exorcism was
not unlike the sign of the Cross, to which was added genuflection of
Assyrian origin.
At any other time Fleda would have laughed at the idea of using the
exorcism; but all the ancient superstition of the Romany people latent in
her now broke forth and held her captive. Standing with candle raised
above her head, her eyes piercing the space before her, she recalled
every word of the exorcism which had caught the drippings from the
fountains of Chaldean, Phoenician, and Egyptian mystery.
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