“Baas,” whispered Hans, “after I had drunk that stuff, which was so nice and warming that I wished you had let me have more of it, your Reverend Father came and talked to me.” “And what did he say to you, Hans?” “He said, Baas, that we were going into very queer company and had better keep our eyes skinned. Also that it would be wise not to interfere in matters that did not concern us.” I reflected to myself that within an hour I had received advice of the same sort from a purely terrestrial source, which was an odd coincidence, unless indeed Hans had overheard or absorbed it subconsciously. To him I only observed, however, that such mandates must be obeyed, and that whatever chanced, he would do well to sit quite still, keeping his pistol ready, but only use it in case of absolute necessity to save ourselves from death. The procession left the hall by a back entrance behind the table at which we had sat, and entered a kind of tunnel that was lit with lamps, though whether this was hollowed in the rock or built of blocks of stone I am not sure. After walking for about fifty paces down this tunnel, suddenly we found ourselves in a great cavern, also dimly lit with lamps, mere spots of light in the surrounding blackness. Here all the priests, including Dacha, left us; at least, peering about, I could not see any of them. The women alone remained in the cave, where they knelt down singly and at a distance from each other like scattered worshippers in a dimly lit cathedral when no service is in progress. Dramana, to whose charge we seemed to have been consigned, led us to a stone bench upon which she took her seat with us. I noted that she did not kneel and worship like the others. For a while we remained thus in silence, staring at the blackness in front where no lamps burned. It was an eerie business in such surroundings that I confess began to get upon my nerves. At length I could bear it no longer, and in a whisper asked Dramana whether anything was about to happen, and if so, what. “The sacrifice is about to happen,” she whispered back. “Be silent, for here the ears of the god are everywhere.” I obeyed, thinking it safer, and another ten minutes or so went by in an intolerable stillness. “When does the play begin, Baas?” muttered Hans in my ear. (Once I had taken him to a theatre in Durban to improve his mind, and he thought that this was another, as indeed it was, if of an unusual sort.) I kicked him on the shins to keep him quiet, and just then at a distance I heard the sound of chanting. It was a weird and melancholy music that seemed to swing backwards and forwards between two bands of singers, each strophe and antistrophe, if those are the right words, ending in a kind of wail or cry of despair which turned my blood cold. When this had gone on for a little while, I thought that I saw figures moving through the gloom in front of us. So did Hans, for he whispered: “The Hairy People are here, Baas.”