“Press the finger with the thread of Anubis on your heart; fix your eyes on the cauldron and the steam which rises to the spirits above, the spirits of light, the great One on high!”

The two women obeyed the sorceress’ directions with beating hearts, while she began spinning round on her toes with dizzy rapidity; her curls flew out, and the magic wand in her extended hand described a large and beautiful curve.  Suddenly, and as if stricken by terror, she stopped her whirl, and at the same instant the lamps went out and the only light was from the stars and the twinkling coals under the cauldrons.  The low music died away, and a fresh strong perfume welled out from behind the curtain.

Medea fell on her knees, lifted up her hands to Heaven, threw her head so far back that her whole face was turned up to the sky and her eyes gazed straight up at the stars-an attitude only possible to so supple a spine.  In this torturing attitude she sang one invocation after another, to the zenith of the blue vault over their heads, in a clear voice of fervent appeal.  Her body was thrown forward, her mass of hair no longer stood up but was turned towards the two young women, who every moment expected that the supplicant would be suffocated by the blood mounting to her head, and fall backwards; but she sang and sang, while her white teeth glittered in the starlight that fell straight upon her face.  Presently, in the midst of the torrent of demoniacal names and magic formulas that she sang and warbled out, a piteous and terrifying sound came from behind the curtain as of two persons gasping, sighing, and moaning:  one voice seemed to be that of a man oppressed by great anguish; the other was the half-suffocated wailing of a suffering child.  This soon became louder, and at length a voice said in Egyptian:  “Water, a drink of water.”

The woman started to her feet, exclaiming:  “It is the cry of the poor and oppressed who have been robbed to enrich those who have too much already; the lament of those whom Fate has plundered to heap you with wealth enough for hundreds.”  As she spoke these words, in Greek and with much unction, she turned to the curtain and added solemnly, but in Egyptian:  “Give drink to the thirsty; the happy ones will spare him a drop from their overflow.  Give the white drink to the wailing child-spirit, that he may be soothed and quenched.—­Play, music, and drown the lamentations of the spirits in sorrow.”

Then, turning to Heliodora’s kettle she said sternly, as if in obedience to some higher power: 

“Seven gold pieces to complete the work,”—­and while the young widow drew out her purse the sorceress lighted the lamps, singing as she did so and as she dropped the coin into the boiling fluid:  “Pure, bright gold!  Sunlight buried in a mine!  Holy Seven.  Shashef, Shashef!  Holy Seven, marry and mingle—­melt together!”

When this was done she poured out of the cauldron a steaming fluid as black as ink, into a shallow saucer, called Heliodora to her side, and told her what she could see in the mirror of its surface.