"We would not begin our fellowship by shedding blood, though we are safer from you than you think.

Your companions shall accompany you to the land of the Kendah, but let them know that they do so at their own risk.

Learn that it is revealed to us that if they go in there some of them will pass out again as spirits but not as men." "Do you mean that you will murder them ?" "No.

We mean that yonder are some stronger than us or any men, who will take their lives in sacrifice.

Not yours, Macumazana, for that, it is decreed, is safe, but those of two of the others, which two we do not know." "Indeed, Harut and Marut, and how am I to be sure that any of us are safe, or that you do not but trick us to your country, there to kill us with treachery and steal our goods ?" "Because we swear it by the oath that may not be broken; we swear it by the Heavenly Child," both of them exclaimed solemnly, speaking with one voice and bowing till their foreheads almost touched the ground.
I shrugged my shoulders and laughed a little.
"You do not believe us," went on Harut, "who have not heard what happens to those who break this oath.