ll the marrow.
And round the fire went the priest in widening and contracting circles,
just as on that Sabbath evening in spring.

Once more we were sitting on the ground, all except Laputa and the
Keeper. Henriques was squatting in the front row, a tiny creature
among so many burly savages. Laputa stood with bent head in the centre.

Then a song began, a wild incantation in which all joined. The old
priest would speak some words, and the reply came in barbaric music.
The words meant nothing to me; they must have been in some tongue long
since dead. But the music told its own tale. It spoke of old kings
and great battles, of splendid palaces and strong battlements, of
queens white as ivory, of death and life, love and hate, joy and
sorrow. It spoke, too, of desperate things, mysteries of horror long
shut to the world. No Kaffir ever forged that ritual. It must have
come straight from Prester John or Sheba's queen, or whoever ruled in
Africa when time was young.

I was horribly impressed. Devouring curiosity and a lurking nameless
fear filled my mind. My old dread had gone. I was not afraid now of
Kaffir guns, but of the black magic of which Laputa had the key.

The incantation died away, but still herbs were flung on the fire, till
the smoke rose in a great cloud, through which the priest loomed misty
and huge. Out of the smoke-wreaths his voice came high and strange.
It was as if some treble stop had been opened in a great organ, as
against the bass drone of the cataract.

He was asking Laputa questions, to which came answers in that rich
voice which on board the liner had preached the gospel of Christ. The
tongue I did not know, and I doubt if my neighbours were in better
case. It must have been some old sacred language--Phoenician, Sabaean,
I know not what--which had survived in the rite of the Snake.

Then came silence while the fire died down and the smoke eddied away in
wreaths towards the river. The priest's lips moved as if in prayer: of
Laputa I saw only the back, and his head was bowed.

Suddenly a rapt cry broke from the Keeper. 'God has spoken,' he cried.
'The path is clear. The Snake returns to the House of its Birth.'

An attendant led forward a black goat, which bleated feebly. With a
huge antique knife the old man slit its throat, catching the blood in a
stone ewer. Some was flung on the fire, which had burned small and low.

'Even so,' cried the priest, 'will the king quench in