“They called to me to come—and I advanced, dreadfully concerned about poor Arlo, and then I don’t know how it was, whether some instinct warned me, or whether it was a look I saw pass between them, but—I acted like an idiot. I turned and ran. You see, I lost my head completely.”
For answer I pressed the hand that rested on my arm closer to my side.
“Well, and what then?” I said.
“As soon as I began to run they came after me. As I say—I had lost my head completely, and hardly knew where I was going. Then, suddenly, I found myself on the brink of the waterhole; in fact I had nearly fallen into it. I turned, and the two were right upon me. ‘Why had I run away?’ they asked. ‘There was surely nothing to be afraid of. Surely I knew them both well enough. My dog was lying there dead and they had been trying to see what they could do for him.’
“I was unaccountably frightened, and dreadfully out of breath after the run. I felt half faint. Then just as I began to think I had behaved like a fool something was thrown over my head from behind, something that seemed saturated with some particularly overpowering and nauseous drug. Then I became unconscious, and only recovered when I found myself at the place we have just come from—or rather in a small kraal in a hollow just above it.”
“And you have been there all the time. Aïda, you are sure they have not injured you?”
“Oh yes. On the contrary they were quite deferential, the witch doctor especially. He told me my presence was necessary for a certain time on account of an important rain-making ceremony he was engaged in. After that I should be taken home again. Well I thought it advisable to make a virtue of necessity, and conciliate them. I even began to enter into the adventure of the thing, and supposed I was going to witness some quaint and rare native superstition. Another thing. The drug that at first overpowered me had left a strange effect—I believe it is a little upon me still. It was a sort of half drowsy apathetic feeling, as if it was too much trouble to think about anything. The women there took care of me, great care; they were Ukozi’s wives they said. Well, this evening he came to me and said the moon was right, and with my help, he had accomplished all he wanted, and it would soon rain abundantly. The time had come to take me home and he would guide me there. Do you know, he can talk English quite well?”
“No—by Jove I didn’t. He’s kept it remarkably dark hitherto. Yet he wasn’t talking English when you appeared.”
“No he wasn’t. I’ve got to understand them rather well by this time. Well, then you all burst out upon us and here I am.”
“Thank God for that!” I said fervently. “There’s another, too, of whom the same holds good, Jan Boom here.”