Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/254

230 Macbeth remained motionless with fear and astonishment. His eager hopes surmise the second title to be a prophecy. If the witches had power to divine rightly that he was Thane of Glamis, would they not also have known that the Thane of Cawdor was still living, and that not to him belonged the honor.

In the next instant the third witch, a hag of more dreadful aspect than either of the others, repeated the strange motions in his path, and, in a whisper so sharp and sibilant, it seemed to pierce the marrow of his brain, hissed in his ear,

Then turning to Banquo, they repeated in the same alternation,

Then, as Macbeth, recovering himself a little, would have sought to question them, the witches, the blazing caldron, all the supernatural surroundings, vanished in a twinkling, and the two warriors were left alone in darkness on the vacant heath.

While they consulted with each other on the reality of the vision they had seen, they were met by two messengers from King Duncan, who