Heda and Anscombe also seemed oppressed and ate sparingly.

We did not talk much until Kaatje had taken away the tin plates and gone to eat her own supper by a fire that burned outside the hut.

Then Heda broke out, saying that she was terrified of this place and especially of its master, the old dwarf, and felt sure that something terrible was going to happen to her.

Anscombe did his best to calm her, and I also told her she had nothing to fear.
"If there is nothing to fear, Mr.Quatermain," she answered, turning on me, "why do you look so frightened yourself?
By your face you might have seen a ghost." This sudden and singularly accurate thrust, for after all I had seen something that looked very like a ghost, startled me, and before I could invent any soothing and appropriate fib, Nombe appeared, saying that she had come to lead Heda to her sleeping-place.

After this further conversation was impossible since, although Nombe knew but few words of English, she was a great thought-reader and I feared to speak of anything secret in her presence.