Death and disease were the
favours usually invoked: the death or the disease of enemies or
rivals; some calling down these plagues upon the nearest of their
own blood, and one, to whom I swear I had been never less than
kind, invoking them upon myself. At each petition, the tall negro,
still smiling, picked up some bird or animal from the heaving mass
upon his left, slew it with the knife, and tossed its body on the
ground. At length, it seemed, it reached the turn of the high-
priestess. She set down the basket on the steps, moved into the
centre of the ring, grovelled in the dust before the reptiles, and
still grovelling lifted up her voice, between speech and singing,
and with so great, with so insane a fervour of excitement, as
struck a sort of horror through my blood.
'Power,' she began, 'whose name we do not utter; power that is
neither good nor evil, but below them both; stronger than good,
greater than evil--all my life long I have adored and served thee.
Who has shed blood upon thine altars? whose voice is broken with
the singing of thy praises? whose limbs are faint before their age
with leaping in thy revels? Who has slain the child of her body?
I,' she cried, 'I, Metamnbogu! By my own name, I name myself.
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