This was the
conjurer, this white-haired fellow, who, with fife, cymbals, bells,
concertinas,--he wore two strapped under either arm,--at times fiddler,
made epileptic music as he quivered and danced, wriggled, and shook his
venerable skull. The big drum was fastened to his back, upon its top
were placed cymbals. On his head he wore a pavilion hung with bells that
pealed when he twisted or nodded his long, yellow neck. He carried a
weather-worn fiddle with a string or two missing, while a pipe that
might have been a clarinet years before, now emitted but cackling tones
from his thin lips, through which shone a few fanglike teeth. By some
incomprehensible cooerdination of muscular movements he contrived to make
sound simultaneously his curious armoury of instruments, and the
whistling, screeching, scratching, drumming, wheezing, and tinkling of
metal were appalling. But it was rhythmic, and at intervals the edge of
a tune could be discerned, cutting sharply through the dense cloud of
vibrations, like the prow of a boat cleaving the fog. Baki, his face red
and swollen by his exertions, moved to the spot where waited the girl.
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