Harut ceased, and there was silence while this portentous message sank into the minds of his audience.  At length they seemed to understand its ominous nature and from them all there arose a universal, simultaneous groan.  As it died away the two attendants dressed as goddesses assisted the personification of the Lady Isis to rise from her seat and, opening the robes upon her breast, pointed to something beneath her throat, doubtless that birthmark shaped like the new moon which made her so sacred in their eyes since she who bore it and she alone could fill her holy office.

All the audience and with them the priests and priestesses bowed before her.  She lifted the symbol of the Child, holding it high above her head, whereon once more they bowed with the deepest veneration.  Then still holding the effigy aloft, she turned and with her two attendants passed into the sanctuary and doubtless thence by a covered way into the house beyond.  At any rate we saw her no more.

As soon as she was gone the congregation, if I may call it so, leaving their seats, swarmed down into the outer court of the temple through its eastern gate, which was now opened.  Here the priests proceeded to distribute among them the offerings taken from the altar, giving a grain of corn to each of the men to eat and a flower to each of the women, which flower she kissed and hid in the bosom of her robe.  Evidently it was a kind of sacrament.

Ragnall lifted himself a little upon his hands and knees, and I saw that his eyes glowed and his face was very pale.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Demand that those people give me back my wife, whom they have stolen.  Don’t try to stop me, Quatermain, I mean what I say.”

“But, but,” I stammered, “they never will and we are but three unarmed men.”

Hans lifted up his little yellow face between us.

“Baas,” he hissed, “I have a thought.  The Lord Baas wishes to get the lady dressed like a bird as to her head and like one for burial as to her body, who is, he says, his wife.  But for us to take her from among so many is impossible.  Now what did that old witch-doctor Harut declare just now?  He declared, speaking for his fetish, that by our help alone the White Kendah can resist the hosts of the Black Kendah and that no harm must be done to us if the White Kendah would continue to live.  So it seems, Baas, that we have something to sell which the White Kendah must buy, namely our help against the Black Kendah, for if we will not fight for them, they believe that they cannot conquer their enemies and kill the devil Jana.  Well now, supposing that the Baas says that our price is the white woman dressed like a bird, to be delivered over to us when we have defeated the Black Kendah and killed Jana—­after which they will have no more use for her.  And supposing that the Baas says that if they refuse to pay that price we will burn all our powder and cartridges so that the rifles are no use?  Is there not a path to walk on here?”