It is a thin wail, a prelude of lamentation; it troubles the blood.

The speaker no one seems to know; he is a man of yellow visage, with head sunk between pointed shoulders, on his crown a mere scalp-lock.

He seems to be afflicted with a disease of the muscles; his malformed body quivers, the hand he raises shakes paralytic.

His clothes are of the meanest; what his age may be it is impossible to judge.

As his voice gathers strength, the hearers begin to feel the influence of a terrible earnestness.