in the bowl on the tripod in front of the chair, how I could not see;
but perhaps it was already smouldering there. At any rate it burnt up
in a thin blue flame, on to which Harut and the head priestess threw
something that caused the flame to turn to smoke. Then Isis, for I
prefer to call her so while describing this ceremony, was caused to bend
her head forward, so that it was enveloped in the smoke exactly as she
and I had done some years before in the drawing-room at Ragnall Castle.
Presently the smoke died away and the two attendants with the feathered
head-dresses straightened her in the chair where she sat still holding
the babe against her breast as she might have done to nurse it, but with
her head bent forward like that of a person in a swoon.

Now Harut stepped forward and appeared to speak to the goddess at some
length, then fell back again and waited, till in the midst of an intense
silence she rose from her seat and, fixing her wide eyes on the heavens,
spoke in her turn, for although we heard nothing of what she said, in
that clear, morning light we could see her lips moving. For some minutes
she spoke, then sat down again upon the chair and remained motionless,
staring straight in front of her. Harut advanced again, this time to
the front of the altar, and, taking his stand upon a kind of stone step,
addressed the priests and priestesses and all the encircling audience in
a voice so loud and clear that I could distinguish and understand every
word he said.

"The Guardian of the heavenly Child, the Nurse decreed, the appointed
Nurturer, She who is the shadow of her that bore the Child, She who in
her day bears the symbol of the Child and is consecrated to its service
from of old, She whose heart is filled with the wisdom of the Child and
who utters the decrees of Heaven, has spoken. Hearken now to the voice
of the Oracle uttered in answer to the questions of me, Harut, the head
priest of the Eternal Child during my life-days. Thus says the Oracle,
the Guardian, the Nurturer, marked like all who went before her with
the holy mark of the new moon. She on whom the spirit, flitting from
generation to generation, has alighted for a while. 'O people of the
White Kendah, worshippers of the Child in this land and descendants of
those who for thousands of years worshipped the Child in a more
ancient land until the barbarians drove it thence with the remnant that
remained. War is upon you, O people of the White Ke