"It gnaws me! It gnaws me!" he exclaimed.
And then there was an audible hiss, but whether it came from the
apparent lunatic's own lips, or was the real hiss of a serpent,
might admit of discussion. At all events, it made Herkimer shudder
to his heart's core.
"Do you know me, George Herkimer?" asked the snake-possessed.
Herkimer did know him. But it demanded all the intimate and
practical acquaintance with the human face, acquired by modelling
actual likenesses in clay, to recognize the features of Roderick
Elliston in the visage that now met the sculptor's gaze. Yet it was
he. It added nothing to the wonder, to reflect that the once brilliant
young man had undergone this odious and fearful change, during the
no more than five brief years of Herkimer's abode at Florence. The
possibility of such a transformation being granted, it was as easy
to conceive it effected in a moment as in an age. Inexpressibly
shocked and startled, it was still the keenest pang, when Herkimer
remembered that the fate of his cousin Rosina, the ideal of gentle
womanhood, was indissolubly interwoven with that of a being whom
Providence seemed to have unhumanized.
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