Frontier and pioneer life -- New Mexico -- Juvenile fiction; New Mexico -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Juvenile fiction
The whole appearance of this individual was odd and striking. His
dress, if dress it could be called, was simple as it was savage. It
consisted of what might have once been a hunting-shirt, but which now
looked more like a leathern bag with the bottom ripped open, and the
sleeves sewed into the sides. It was of a dirty-brown colour, wrinkled
at the hollow of the arms, patched round the armpits, and greasy all
over; it was fairly caked with dirt! There was no attempt at either
ornament or fringe. There had been a cape, but this had evidently been
drawn upon from time to time, for patches and other uses, until scarcely
a vestige of it remained. The leggings and moccasins were on a par with
the shirt, and seemed to have been manufactured out of the same hide.
They, too, were dirt-brown, patched, wrinkled, and greasy. They did not
meet each other, but left a piece of the ankle bare, and that also was
dirt-brown, like the buck-skin. There was no undershirt, waistcoat, or
other garment to be seen, with the exception of a close-fitting cap,
which had once been cat-skin, but the hair was all worn off it, leaving
a greasy, leathery-looking surface, that corresponded well with the
other parts of the dress. Cap, shirt, leggings, and moccasins looked as
if they had never been stripped off since the day they were first tried
on, and that might have been many a year ago. The shirt was open,
displaying the naked breast and throat, and these, as well as the face,
hands, and ankles, had been tanned by the sun, and smoked by the fire,
to the hue of rusty copper. The whole man, clothes and all, looked as
if he had been smoked on purpose!
His face bespoke a man of sixty. The features were sharp and somewhat
aquiline; and the small eye was dark, quick, and piercing. His hair was
black and cut short. His complexion had been naturally brunette, though
there was nothing of the Frenchman or Spaniard on his physiognomy. He
was more likely of the black Saxon breed.
As I looked at this man (for I had walked towards him, prompted by some
instinct of curiosity), I began to fancy that there was a strangeness
about him, independent of the oddness of his attire. There seemed to be
something peculiar about his head, something wanting. What was it? I
was not long in conjecture. When fairly in front of him, I saw what was
wanting. It was his ears!
This discovery impressed me with a feeling akin to awe. There is
something awful in a man without ears. It suggests some horrid drama,
some terrible scene of cruel vengeance. It suggests the idea of crime
committed and punishment inflicted.
These thoughts were wandering through my mind, when all at once I
remembered a remark which Seguin had made on the previous night. This,
then, thought I, is the person of whom he spoke. My mind was satisfied.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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