The cry was taken up. The bloodthirsty shout rolled through the ranks fiercer and fiercer till the wild roaring chorus was deafening. That crouching, armed multitude, a moment before so motionless and silent, sprang erect, swaying to and fro, frenzied with uncontrollable excitement; a legion of dark demons roaring and howling under the promptings of superstition and ferocity; bellowing for blood--blood, blood, no matter whose. Weapons waved wildly in the air, and the deep-throated shout volleyed forth. "He must be killed!" The warriors were seated in an immense double semicircle. Gliding with her half-dancing step to the upper end of this, the witch-doctress began chanting an incantation in a high nasal key, an invocation to the great _Inyoka_ [Serpent] who held the kraal and its inhabitants under its especial favour. As she commenced her round, the shouting of the warriors was hushed. All stood upright and silent. Different emotions held sway in each grim, dark countenance. The hearts of many were sinking with deadly fear, yet each strove to meet the eye of the terrible witch-doctress boldly and without quailing. They knew that that fatal round would prove of deadly import to one or more of them ere it was completed. "Ho--_Inyoka 'nukulu_!" [Great serpent] chanted the hag, with a significant shake of the body of the hideous reptile, which she held by the neck. "Find the wizard! Find the wizard!" "Find the wizard!" echoed those whom she had already passed by as she commenced her passage along the line. "Find the wizard!" they shouted, rapping the ground with their sticks. Those who had yet to undergo the ordeal kept stem silence. The chorus grew in volume as the number qualified to swell it increased. Not merely a lust for blood did that horrid shout represent--it embodied also a delirious relief on the part of those already safe. Suddenly Ngcenika made a half pause, raising her voice in the midst of her yelling chant. The serpent, its black coils writhing and twisting around her arm, opened its jaws and hissed horribly. Those still expectant held their breaths; those already relieved shouted and hammered with their sticks harder than ever. Those directly opposite the sorceress, at this ill-omened juncture, stood turned to stone. "Find him, Inyoka!" snarled the hag. "Find him! Find him!" echoed the deep-toned chorus. But the pause was only momentary. Not yet was the victim singled out. Ngcenika resumed her way, only to repeat the process further along the line. And this she would do at intervals, sometimes coming to a dead stop in such significant and purpose-fraught fashion that the whole body of spectators stood ready to hurl themselves like lightning upon the unlucky one denounced. The hellish hag was enjoying the terror she inspired, and as strong men of tried bravery one after another quailed before her she gloated over their fears to such a pitch that her voice rose to a deafening shriek of demoniacal glee.