At length it was round,
and as the head came in view all the Pongo from the Kalubi down ceased
their low, weird chant and flung themselves upon their faces, those
who had torches still holding them up in their right hands.
Oh! what a thing appeared! It was not a toad, but a man that moved
upon all fours. The large, bald head was sunk deep between the
shoulders, either through deformity or from age, for this creature was
undoubtedly very old. Looking at it, I wondered how old, but could
form no answer in my mind. The great, broad face was sunken and
withered, like to leather dried in the sun; the lower lip hung
pendulously upon the prominent and bony jaw. Two yellow, tusk-like
teeth projected one at each corner of the great mouth; all the rest
were gone, and from time to time it licked the white gums with a red-
pointed tongue as a snake might do. But the chief wonder of the Thing
lay in its eyes that were large and round, perhaps because the flesh
had shrunk away from them, which gave them the appearance of being set
in the hollow orbits of a skull.
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