"How big they seem to
themselves and how small they really are!"
Suddenly he arose and seized Guph's neck with one hairy paw, dragging
him out of the hut into the open.
Here he gave a curious wailing cry, and, as if in answer, from all the
rocky huts on the mountain-top came flocking a horde of Phanfasms, all
with hairy bodies, but wearing heads of various animals, birds and
reptiles. All were ferocious and repulsive-looking to the deceived
eyes of the Nome, and Guph could not repress a shudder of disgust as
he looked upon them.
The First and Foremost slowly raised his arms, and in a twinkling his
hairy skin fell from him and he appeared before the astonished Nome
as a beautiful woman, clothed in a flowing gown of pink gauze. In her
dark hair flowers were entwined, and her face was noble and calm.
At the same instant the entire band of Phanfasms was transformed into
a pack of howling wolves, running here and there as they snarled and
showed their ugly yellow fangs.
The woman now raised her arms, even as the man-bear had done, and in
a twinkling the wolves became crawling lizards, while she herself
changed into a huge butterfly.
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