Why, then, men asked in their hearts, was the death delayed?
The witch-doctors asked it also, and looked to the king for light, as men look to a thunder-cloud for the flash.

But from the Black One there came no word.
So we stood on one side, and a second party of the Isanusi women began their rites.

As the others had done, so they did, and yet they worked otherwise, for this is the fashion of the Isanusis, that no two of them smell out in the same way.

And this party swept the faces of certain of the king's councillors, naming them guilty of the witch-work.
"Stand ye on one side!" said the king to those who had been smelt out; "and ye who have hunted out their wickedness, stand ye with those who named Mopo, son of Makedama.

It well may be that all are guilty." So these stood on one side also, and a third party took up the tale.
And they named certain of the great generals, and were in turn bidden to stand on one side together with those whom they had named.
So it went on through all the day.