with joy.

"I am old! I am old! I have seen much blood; _ha, ha!_ but I shall see
more ere I die, and be merry. How old am I, think ye? Your fathers knew
me, and _their_ fathers knew me, and _their_ fathers' fathers' fathers.
I have seen the white man and know his desires. I am old, but the
mountains are older than I. Who made the great road, tell me? Who wrote
the pictures on the rocks, tell me? Who reared up the three Silent Ones
yonder, that gaze across the pit, tell me?" and she pointed towards the
three precipitous mountains which we had noticed on the previous night.

"Ye know not, but I know. It was a white people who were before ye are,
who shall be when ye are not, who shall eat you up and destroy you.
_Yea! yea! yea!_

"And what came they for, the White Ones, the Terrible Ones, the skilled
in magic and all learning, the strong, the unswerving? What is that
bright stone upon thy forehead, O king? Whose hands made the iron
garments upon thy breast, O king? Ye know not, but I know. I the Old
One, I the Wise One, I the _Isanusi_, the witch doctress!"

Then she turned her bald vulture-head towards us.

"What seek ye, white men of the Stars--ah, yes, of the Stars? Do ye
seek a lost one? Ye shall not find him here. He is not here. Never for
ages upon ages has a white foot pressed this land; never except once,
and I remember that he left it but to die. Ye come for bright stones; I
know it--I know it; ye shall find them when the blood is dry; but shall
ye return whence ye came, or shall ye stop with me? _Ha! ha! ha!_

"And thou, thou with the dark skin and the proud bearing," and she
pointed her skinny finger at Umbopa, "who art _thou_, and what seekest
_thou_? Not stones that shine, not yellow metal that gleams, these thou
leavest to 'white men from the Stars.' Methinks I know thee; methinks I
can smell the smell of the blood in thy heart. Strip off the girdle--"

Here the features of this extraordinary creature became convulsed, and
she fell to the ground foaming in an epileptic fit, and was carried
into the hut.

The king rose up trembling, and waved his hand. Instantly the regiments
began to file off, and in ten minutes, save for ourselves, the king,
and a few attendants, the great space was left empty.

"White people," he said, "it passes in my mind to kill you. Gagool has
spoken strange words. What say ye?"

I laughed. "Be careful, O king, we are not easy to slay. Thou hast seen
the fate of the ox; wo