[King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard]@TWC D-Link bookKing Solomon’s Mines CHAPTER X 17/26
As they drew near we saw that these were women, most of them aged, for their white hair, ornamented with small bladders taken from fish, streamed out behind them.
Their faces were painted in stripes of white and yellow; down their backs hung snake-skins, and round their waists rattled circlets of human bones, while each held a small forked wand in her shrivelled hand.
In all there were ten of them.
When they arrived in front of us they halted, and one of them, pointing with her wand towards the crouching figure of Gagool, cried out-- "Mother, old mother, we are here." "_Good! good! good!_" answered that aged Iniquity.
"Are your eyes keen, _Isanusis_ [witch doctresses], ye seers in dark places ?" "Mother, they are keen." "_Good! good! good!_ Are your ears open, _Isanusis_, ye who hear words that come not from the tongue ?" "Mother, they are open." "_Good! good! good!_ Are your senses awake, _Isanusis_--can ye smell blood, can ye purge the land of the wicked ones who compass evil against the king and against their neighbours? Are ye ready to do the justice of 'Heaven above,' ye whom I have taught, who have eaten of the bread of my wisdom, and drunk of the water of my magic ?" "Mother, we can." "Then go! Tarry not, ye vultures; see, the slayers"-- pointing to the ominous group of executioners behind--"make sharp their spears; the white men from afar are hungry to see.
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