't let the Devil see that it has got a white spot on its rump and
another on its belly. In one minute, Devil. There, cut his throat quick.
Where is the saucer?"

"The Goat! the Goat! the Goat! Give me the blood of my black goat! I
must have it, don't you see I must have it? Oh! oh! oh! give me the
blood of the goat."

At this moment a terrified _bah!_ announced that the poor goat had been
sacrificed, and the next minute a woman ran up with a saucer full of
blood. This the possessed creature, who was then raving and foaming her
wildest, seized and _drank_, and was instantly recovered, and without
a trace of hysteria, or fits, or being possessed, or whatever dreadful
thing it was she was suffering from. She stretched her arms, smiled
faintly, and walked quietly back to the dancers, who presently withdrew
in a double line as they had come, leaving the space between us and the
bonfire deserted.

I thought that the entertainment was now over, and, feeling rather
queer, was about to ask _She_ if we could rise, when suddenly what
at first I took to be a baboon came hopping round the fire, and was
instantly met upon the other side by a lion, or rather a human being
dressed in a lion's skin. Then came a goat, then a man wrapped in an
ox's hide, with the horns wobbling about in a ludicrous way. After him
followed a blesbok, then an impala, then a koodoo, then more goats, and
many other animals, including a girl sewn up in the shining scaly hide
of a boa-constrictor, several yards of which trailed along the ground
behind her. When all the beasts had collected they began to dance about
in a lumbering, unnatural fashion, and to imitate the sounds produced
by the respective animals they represented, till the whole air was alive
with roars and bleating and the hissing of snakes. This went on for a
long time, till, getting tired of the pantomime, I asked Ayesha if there
would be any objection to Leo and myself walking round to inspect the
human torches, and, as she had nothing to say against it, we started,
striking round to the left. After looking at one or two of the flaming
bodies, we were about to return, thoroughly disgusted with the grotesque
weirdness of the spectacle, when our attention was attracted by one of
the dancers, a particularly active leopard, that had separated itself
from its fellow-beasts, and was whisking about in our immediate
neighbourhood, but gradually drawing into a spot where the shadow
was darkest, equid