ighted in the shape of a broad moon approaching its full,
its globe reddening into an increasing glow with the twilight darkening
of the sky.

"We shall pass by the waterhole," I said. "You are not afraid."

"Afraid? With you? But it is an uncanny place. We have rather avoided
it since that time we first saw that weird thing in it. But we have
been there since in the daytime with Falkner, and father, and whatever
the thing may have been we have never seen it since."

"Well, we'll have a look at it in this grand moonlight. Perhaps the
bogey may condescend to appear again."

"Hark!" exclaimed Aida suddenly. "What is that?" Then listening--"Why,
it's a lamb or a kid that must have strayed or been left out."

A shrill bleat came to our ears--came from the bush on the further side
of the hole to us, but still a little way beyond it.

"Couldn't we manage to catch it?" she went on. "It'll be eaten by the
jackals, poor little thing."

"Instead of by us," I laughed. "Well, it doesn't make much difference
to it though it does to its owner. Wait--Don't speak," I added in a
whisper, for my ears had caught a sound which hers had missed.

We stood motionless. We were on high ground not much more than twenty
yards above the pool, every part of which we could see as it lay, its
placid surface showing like a dull, lack-lustre eye in the moonlight.
In the gloom of the bush we were completely hidden, but through the
sprays we could see everything that might take place.

Again the bleat went forth shrilly, this time much nearer. But--it
ceased suddenly, as if it had been choked off in the middle.

A dark figure stood beside the pool, on the very brink, the figure of a
man--a native--and in his hands he held something white--something that
struggled. It was a half-bred Angora kid--the little animal whose bleat
we had heard. I could see the glint of the man's head-ring in the
moonlight; then for a moment, as he turned it upward, I could see his
face, and it was that of Ukozi, the one-eyed witch doctor. An increased
pressure on my arm told that my companion had seen it too. I dared not
speak, for I was curious to see what he was about to do. I could only
motion her to preserve the strictest silence.

The witch doctor stood waving the kid--held in both hands by the fore
and hind feet--high over his head, and chanting a deep-toned
incantation; yet in such "dark" phraseology was this couched that even I
couldn't mak