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it lives, life would have been extinct in her long ago. It was a horrible scene. The almost nude body of the hag was one mass of blood, which, coagulated over a dozen ghastly wounds, now began to well forth afresh; the muscular, half-bent form of the grim old warrior, glistening with perspiration, as with the blaze of unsatiated revenge burning in his eyes he dragged her along that grisly cavern floor. Tugging, hauling, perspiring, growling, he at length reached the brow of the pit with his ghastly freight. Then pausing a moment, with a devilish grin on his face, to contemplate the object of his deadly rancour, he pushed the body over. A dull thud and a smothered groan told that it had reached the bottom. "_Hau_! hell cat--toad's spawn!" he cried. "How do you feel down there? Where is the great witch-doctress of the Gcaleka nation now? Where is Sarili's great councillor of the Spirit-world now? With those whom her wizard arts destroyed. Men, brave fighting men all, were they--what are they now? Bones, skulls, among which the serpents crawl in and out," and as if to emphasise his words, a hissing went forth from the reptiles disturbed by this new invasion of their prison house. "Ha, ha, ha!" he laughed. "Wise witch-doctress, thou canst `smell out' their spirits once more in the darkness before thou diest. Thou art a great magician, but the magic of the white men--the magic of Ixeshane--is greater than thine, and it has delivered thee into my hand. "Hlangani, the valiant--the fighting chief of the Ama Gcaleka--the herald of Sarili--is dead. _Hau_!" Then raising his voice to a high taunting pitch, he cried, "where is Maqwela, the warrior who struck the Amanglezi in three wars? His skull is beside thee--talk to it. Where is Mpunhla, erstwhile my friend? He, too, was condemned to `The Home of the Serpents' by thee. He, too, is beside thee. Where is Vudana, my kinsman? The black ants have picked his bones. This, too, was thy work, and I, Josane, would be even as they, but that I have been reserved to deal out vengeance to their slayer! And now when Sarili-- when the _amapakati_ of the house of Gcaleka call for their wise witch-doctress, they will call long and loud but will get no answer, for `The Home of the Serpents' yields not up its secrets. Fare thee well, Ngcenika; rest peacefully. My vengeance is complete. _Hlala-gahle_!" The weird flickering light of the dying candles danced on the figu
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