ilwane!" cried a deep, bass voice, which rumbled in hoarse
echoes beneath the domed roof, while the speaker held his lantern out
over the pit. "Ho, Umlilwane! It is the dog's feeding time again. We
have brought the dog his bones. Ho, ho!"

The wretched maniac who, until now, had kept silence, here broke forth
again into his diabolical howls. By the sound the watchers could tell
that he was exhausting himself in a series of bull-dog springs similar
to those prompted by his frenzy on first discovering themselves. At
each of these futile outbursts the two mocking fiends shouted and roared
with laughter. But they little knew how near they were laughing for the
last time. Three rifles were covering them at a distance of fifty
yards--three rifles in the hands of men who were dead shots, and whose
hearts were bursting with silent fury. Josane, seeing this, took
occasion to whisper under cover of the lunatic's frenzied howls:

"The time is not yet. The witch-doctress is for me--for me. I will
lure her in here, and when I give the word--but not before--shoot
Hlangani. The witch-doctress is for me."

The identity of the two figures was distinct in the light. The hideous
sorceress, though reft of most of the horrid accessories and adornments
of her order, yet looked cruel and repulsive as a very fiend--fitting
figure to harmonise with the Styx-like gloom of the scene. The huge
form of the warrior loomed truly gigantic in the sickly lantern light.
"Ho, Umlilwane, thou dog of dogs!" went on the latter. "Art thou
growing tired of thy cool retreat? Are not the serpents good
companions? _Haul_ Thou wert a fool to part so readily with thy mind.
After so many moons of converse with the serpents, thou shouldst have
been a mighty soothsayer--a mighty diviner--by now. How long did it
take thee to lose thy mind? But a single day? But a day and a night?
That was quick! Ho, ho!" And the great taunting laugh was echoed by
the shriller cackle of the female fiend.

"Thou wert a mighty man with thy fists, a mighty man with thy gun, O
Umlilwane!" went on the savage, his mocking tones now sinking to those
of devilish hatred. "But now thou art no longer a man--no longer a man.
_Au_! What were my words to thee? `Thou hadst better have cut off thy
right hand before shedding the blood of Hlangani _for it is better to
lose a hand than one's mind_.' What thinkest thou now of Hlangani's
revenge? Hi!"

How plain now to one of