“The moon,” he said.
Then, indeed, Nkose, amazement was my lot—amazement and dismay. And well it might be. For last night the moon had not quite passed its first quarter. To-night it was nearly full.
Like one in a dream I gazed. Anything might be possible in this abode of tagati, but that the moon should change in one day from half to nearly full—au! that was too much.
“What does it mean, Jambúla?” I said at length. “Last night the moon was less than half, and now—?”
“Au!” muttered Jambúla, bringing his hand to his mouth with a strange sort of laugh. “Who am I that I should contradict you, my father? But last night the moon was nearly as it is now. But the night you left us it was but at half.”
“And was not that last night, O fool? In truth the wizardry of this place has eaten into thy brain. And yet—!”
There was the moon, Nkose, within a day or two of full. It could not lie, even though Jambúla could. Stupidly I gazed at it, then at him.
“And how long ago is it that I left you, Jambúla?”
“Six days, father.”
Ha! Now I saw. Now everything was clear. The wizard, and the múti fire—the green, choking vapour that had filled my lungs and brain, causing me to see strange and fearful things—had kept me in a state of slumber. For six days I had lain within the heart of the rock, and I had thought it but the short part of one day. My hunger on my recovery—the state of putrefaction of the body of the slave whom I had supposed to have been slain only that morning—the change of the moon—all, indeed, stood clear enough now.