An uncomfortable wave swept through me. The fact is that no white man, however well he is known to natives, ever gets really to the bottom of the darker mysteries of their superstitions, which indeed remain utterly unsuspected in most cases, so well are they concealed. Who could say what might underlie this one! However I answered:
“I don’t think there would have been danger of that sort. Ukozi would have shown him the performance we have witnessed, as something very wonderful. As a matter of fact it isn’t wonderful at all, in that it resolves itself into a mere question of snake charming. Ukozi has half trained this brute by feeding it periodically as we have seen. That’s all. Hallo!”
Well might I feel amazement, but the exclamation had escaped me involuntarily. We had come round the pool now, and here, very near the spot whereon Ukozi had gone through his strange performance—instinctively we had kept a little back from the water—an odour struck upon my nostrils, and it was the same sickly overpowering effluvium that had filled the air when my horse had refused to proceed on that memorable night I had intended to ride back from Kendrew’s.
“What is it?” exclaimed Aïda, with a start.
“Nothing. Nothing at all. I’ve frightened you, and you are a little wound up already by that uncanny performance,” I answered.
“Frightened? No. I don’t believe I could be that when I’m with you. I always feel so safe. Otherwise it would seem strange that this witch doctor whom we have not seen for so long, and in fact whom we thought had left this part of the country, should have been here right in our midst all the time.”
“He may not have been. He may only just have returned,” I said. “Worthies of his profession are inclined to be somewhat sporadic in their movements. Meanwhile if I were you, I wouldn’t say anything about what we’ve just seen until I’ve had time to make a few inquiries.”
She promised, of course, and as we took our way homeward in the splendour of the clear African night we thought no more of the uncanny episode we had just witnessed, except as something out of the common which had lent an element of unexpected excitement to our walk.