hough the weal or woe of her two visitors were involved in
the smallest omission:

"Press the finger with the thread of Anubis on your heart; fix your eyes
on the cauldron and the steam which rises to the spirits above, the
spirits of light, the great One on high!"

The two women obeyed the sorceress' directions with beating hearts, while
she began spinning round on her toes with dizzy rapidity; her curls flew
out, and the magic wand in her extended hand described a large and
beautiful curve. Suddenly, and as if stricken by terror, she stopped her
whirl, and at the same instant the lamps went out and the only light was
from the stars and the twinkling coals under the cauldrons. The low music
died away, and a fresh strong perfume welled out from behind the curtain.

Medea fell on her knees, lifted up her hands to Heaven, threw her head so
far back that her whole face was turned up to the sky and her eyes gazed
straight up at the stars-an attitude only possible to so supple a spine.
In this torturing attitude she sang one invocation after another, to the
zenith of the blue vault over their heads, in a clear voice of fervent
appeal. Her body was thrown forward, her mass of hair no longer stood up
but was turned towards the two young women, who every moment expected
that the supplicant would be suffocated by the blood mounting to her
head, and fall backwards; but she sang and sang, while her white teeth
glittered in the starlight that fell straight upon her face. Presently,
in the midst of the torrent of demoniacal names and magic formulas that
she sang and warbled out, a piteous and terrifying sound came from behind
the curtain as of two persons gasping, sighing, and moaning: one voice
seemed to be that of a man oppressed by great anguish; the other was the
half-suffocated wailing of a suffering child. This soon became louder,
and at length a voice said in Egyptian: "Water, a drink of water."

The woman started to her feet, exclaiming: "It is the cry of the poor and
oppressed who have been robbed to enrich those who have too much already;
the lament of those whom Fate has plundered to heap you with wealth
enough for hundreds." As she spoke these words, in Greek and with much
unction, she turned to the curtain and added solemnly, but in Egyptian:
"Give drink to the thirsty; the happy ones will spare him a drop from
their overflow. Give the white drink to the wailing child-spirit, that he
may be soothed and quenched.--Play