"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. Aida, 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." The Xosa, who was walking a little ahead of us, paused at the sound of his name and waited for us. "_Nkose_," he said, speaking in the vernacular. "Did you promise to tell me before three moons were dead, whether you were sorry you had kept me in your service or not?" "That I did, Jan Boom, and you know the answer. Nor will you find me forgetful--_impela_!" "_Nkose_!" he ejaculated and walked on. "I have yet to get the whole mystery out of him," I said in a low tone, "but for that I must wait his own time." There was another "time" for which I meant to wait. Not yet would I reveal to Aida the horrible fate to which the repulsive superstition of the witch doctor had consigned her. That she would learn in due course. At present I wanted her to recover completely from the effects of her experience.