A few sticks had been thrown on the embers, and Maun Singh was kneeling down and blowing them into a flame, which, bursting through them in small flashes with every breath, partially illumined the figures around it and the blackened walls of the apartment. Pahar Singh sat with the gold coins before him, counting them one by one. A large portion were already laid on one side, which he proceeded to drop into the bag. The expression of his coarse and savage features could now be distinctly seen; for not only was the light from the fire becoming steady, but he had removed from his original position, so that he sat with his face nearly full towards Fazil, though from Bulwunt Rao he was more concealed than before. It was a face which, once seen, could never be forgotten. Men saw it and quailed before it: women saw it and shuddered: and Fazil remembered how often old Goolab, when he was yet a child, had frightened him by the mention of Pahar Singh: while tales of his occasional frays and bloody deeds were of everyday report in the bazar. There, then, he sat. Turban he had none: his matted hair, twisted into a rough rope, was tied in a knot on the crown of his head, and covered with ashes, showing the high narrow forehead--on which, though crossed by deep wrinkles, the forked veins, swelled by his excitement, stood out like ridges, betokening passions wild, fierce, and uncontrollable. The eyes, always bright, glittered restlessly and suspiciously from beneath the heavy brows, to which, and to the lids, the white ashes, smeared on his face from time to time as he sat, had adhered; and his hard grin disclosed the prominent eye-teeth, which he chose to call tusks, in allusion to his name. When we last saw this face at Itga, it was excited, but there was a softening influence exercised by the presence of his adopted son, and Pahar Singh was under some restraint. Now there was none, and it was difficult to recognize the features at all under his disguise, which served to increase the natural ferocity of the expression.