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rains down from the skies.

"/Footsteps! footsteps! footsteps!/ the tread of the white man coming
from afar. It shakes the earth; the earth trembles before her master.

"Blood is good, the red blood is bright; there is no smell like the
smell of new-shed blood. The lions shall lap it and roar, the vultures
shall wash their wings in it and shriek 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; wouldst thou be as the ox is?"

The king frowned. "It is not well to threaten a king."

"We threaten not, we speak what is true.

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