You have slain sundry of the sacred beasts that are the mouth of sacrifice, you have killed certain of the priests and guards of Harmac in a hole of the rocks.

Moreover my spies tell me that you plan further ills against the god and against me.

Now I send to tell you that for these and other offences I will make an end of the people of the Abati, whom hitherto I have spared.

In a little while I marry my daughter to the white man, that priest of Harmac who is called Singer of Egypt, and who is said to be the son of the physician in your service, but after I have celebrated this feast and my people have finished the hoeing of their crops, I take up the sword in earnest, nor will I lay it down again until the Abati are no more.
"'Learn that last night after the holy beasts had been slain and the sacrifice snatched away, the god Harmac spoke to his priests in prophecy.

And this was his prophecy; that before the gathering in of the harvest his _head_ should sleep above the plain of Mur.