Red Death were flowing there. But now, father, suffer me
to ran to Maqandi's kraal and fetch slaves to carry this, and indeed,
the skin and hoofs, to lay before the King, for we have no time to
lose."

"No time to lose!" I repeated. "What mean you?"

He pointed upward with his blood-smeared assegai.

"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, Jambula?" I said at length. "Last night the moon
was less than half, and now--?"

"_Au_!" muttered Jambula, 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 Jambula could. Stupidly I gazed at it, then at him.

"And how long ago is it that I left you, Jambula?"

"Six days, father."

Ha! Now I saw. Now everything was clear. The wizard, and the _muti_
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.

But whatever Jambula may have imagined, it was not in my mind to tell
him, or anybody, what had really happened, for it is not good among us
for a man to have a name for dealings with _abatagati_. So I sent him
off there and then to Maqandi's kraal, with orders to bring back a
number of men immediately to flay the great ghost-bull and carry the
hide, with the head and hoofs, before the King, without loss of time.

After he had gone, and while I sat alone in the haunted place, I watched
by the great black mass lying so still and quiet; and, _Nkos