I could
see its green cat's eyes glowing in the dark, and the striving of its
muscles, and hear the breath hissing from its muzzled jaws.

The figure raised a knife and plunged it into the throat of the great
cat. The slow lapping of blood broke in on the stillness. Then the
voice shrilled high and wild. I could see that the man had marked his
forehead with blood, and that his hands were red and dripping. He
seemed to be declaiming some savage chant, to which my neighbours began
to keep time with their bodies. Wilder and wilder it grew, till it
ended in a scream like a seamew's. Whoever the madman was, he knew the
mystery of Indian souls, for in a little he would have had that host
lusting blindly for death. I felt the spell myself, piercing through my
awe and hatred of the spell-weaver, and I won't say but that my weary
head kept time with the others to that weird singing.

A man brought a torch and lit the brushwood on the altar. Instantly a
flame rose to heaven, through which the figure of the magician showed
fitfully like a mountain in mist. That act broke the wizardry for me.
To sacrifice a cat was monstrous and horrible, but it was also
uncouthly silly. I saw the magic for what it was, a maniac's trickery.
In the revulsion I grew angry, and my anger heartened me wonderfully.
Was this stupendous quackery to bring ruin to the Tidewater? Though I
had to choke the life with my own hands out of that warlock's throat, I
should prevent it.

Then from behind the fire the voice began again. But this time I
understood it. The words were English. I was amazed, for I had
forgotten that I knew the wizard to be a white man.

"_Thus saith the Lord God_," it cried, "_Woe to the bloody city! I will
make the pile great for fire. Heap on wood, kindle the fire, consume
the flesh, and spice it well, and let the bones be burned_."

He poked the beast on the altar, and a bit of burning yellow fur fell
off and frizzled on the ground.

It was horrid beyond words, lewd and savage and impious, and
desperately cruel. And the strange thing was that the voice was
familiar.

"_O thou that dwellest upon many waters_," it went on again, "_abundant
in treasures, thine end is come, and the measure of thy covetousness.
The Lord of Hosts hath sworn by Himself, saying, Surely I will fill
thee with men as with caterpillars_...."

With that last word there came over me a flood of recollection. It was
spoken not in the common English way, but