The tongue I did not know, and I doubt if my neighbours were in better case.

It must have been some old sacred language--Phoenician, Sabaean, I know not what--which had survived in the rite of the Snake.
Then came silence while the fire died down and the smoke eddied away in wreaths towards the river.

The priest's lips moved as if in prayer: of Laputa I saw only the back, and his head was bowed.
Suddenly a rapt cry broke from the Keeper.

'God has spoken,' he cried.
'The path is clear.

The Snake returns to the House of its Birth.' An attendant led forward a black goat, which bleated feebly.