Between Snow and Fire — page 213: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A STRANGE DUEL. 205 “Where will he wake, Ngcenika?” asked Eustace, in a voice which he strove to render unconcerned. ‘ Kwa, Zinyoka,’* replied the hag with a brutal laugh. “And where is that ?” “Where is it? Ha, ha!” mocked the witch-doctress. “Thou art a magician, too, Ixeshane. Wouldst thou in- deed like to know ?” Perhaps.” “Invoke thy magic then, and see if it will tell thee. But better not. For they who look upon the Home of the Ser- pents are seen no more in life. .Thou hast seen the last of yon white man, Ixeshane ; thou and these standing around here. Ha, ha! Better for him that he had never been born.” And with a satanic laugh she turned away and left him, Strong nerved as he was, Eustace felt his flesh creep. The hag’s parting words hinted at some mysterious and darkly horrible fate in store for his unfortunate cousin. His ~ own precarious position brought a sense of this doubly home to him. He remembered how jubilant poor Tom had been over the outbreak of the war. This, then, was to be the end of it, Instead of paying off old scores with his hated and despised foes, he had himself walked blindfold into the trap, and was to be sacrificed in some frightful manner to their vengeance, * At the Home of the Serpents, Eomicbooks (ace) mn