"Yes," I said.
"You can interpret?"
"Yes."
"Will you?"
I was silent, pondering the fearful meaning which had been rendered plainer and more hideous by the painted symbols.
"It has to do with the magic of the Seneca priesthood," I muttered. "Here is a foul screed—and yet a message, too, to you."
Then, with an effort I found courage to read, as it was written:
"I speak! Thou, Lois, mightest have been destroyed! Thus! (Here the white dog.) But I will frustrate their purpose. Keep listening to me, Lois. That which has befallen you we place it here (or, 'we draw it here'—i. e., the severed foot and claws of a lynx). Being born white (literally, 'being born having a white neck'), this happened." And the ghastly sign of Leshi ended it.
"But what does it all signify?" she asked, bewildered.
And even as she spoke, out of the dull and menacing horror of the symbols, into my mind, leaped terrible comprehension.