“See the Lord Ferreira and his wife,” said the Molimo, “whom their daughter laid thus before she went to join them.” Then, at a motion from Benita, he covered them up again with their golden cloths.
“Here they sleep,” he went on in his chanting voice, “a hundred and fifty and three of them—a hundred and fifty and three; and when I dream in this place at night, I have seen the ghosts of every one of them arise from beside their forms and come gliding down the cave—the husband with the wife, the child with the mother—to look at me, and ask when the maiden returns again to take her heritage and give them burial.”
Benita shuddered; the solemn awfulness of the place and scene oppressed her. She began to think that she, too, saw those ghosts.
“It is enough,” she said. “Let us be going.”
So they went, and the pitiful, agonized Christ upon the cross, at which she glanced from time to time over her shoulder, faded to a white blot, then vanished away in the darkness, through which, from generation to generation, it kept its watch above the dead, those dead that in their despair once had cried to it for mercy, and bedewed its feet with tears.
Glad, oh! glad was she when she had left that haunted place behind her, and saw the wholesome light again.
“What have you seen?” asked her father and Meyer, in one breath, as they noted her white and frightened face.
She sank upon a stone seat at the entrance of the cave, and before she could open her lips the Molimo answered for her:
“The maiden has seen the dead. The Spirit who goes with her has given greeting to its dead that it left so long ago. The maiden has done reverence to the White One who hangs upon the cross, and asked a blessing and a pardon of Him, as she whose Spirit goes with her did reverence before the eyes of my forefathers, and asked a blessing and a pardon ere she cast herself away.” And he pointed to the little golden crucifix which hung upon Benita’s bosom, attached to the necklace which Tamas, the messenger, had given her at Rooi Krantz.
“Now,” he went on, “now the spell is broken, and the sleepers must depart to sleep elsewhere. Enter, white men; enter, if you dare, and ask for pardon and for blessing if it may be found, and gather up the dry bones and take the treasure that was theirs, if it may be found, and conquer the curse that goes with the treasure for all save one, if you can, if you can, if you can! Rest you here, maiden, in the sweet sunshine, and follow me, white men; follow me into the dark of the dead to seek for that which the white men love.” And once more he vanished down the passage, turning now and again to beckon to them, while they went after him as though drawn against their wish. For now, at the last moment, some superstitious fear spread from him to them, and showed itself in their eyes.
To Benita, half fainting upon the stone seat, for this experience had shaken her to the heart, it seemed but a few minutes, though really the best part of an hour had gone by, when her father reappeared as white-faced as she had been.
“Where is Mr. Meyer?” she asked.
“Oh!” he answered. “He is collecting all the golden ornaments off those poor bodies, and tumbling their bones together in a corner of the cave.”
Benita uttered an exclamation of horror.
“I know what you mean,” said her father. “But, curse the fellow! he has no reverence, although at first he seemed almost as scared as I was myself. He said that as we could not begin our search with all those corpses about, they had best be got out of the way as soon as possible. Or perhaps it was because he is really afraid of them, and wanted to prove to himself that they are nothing more than dust. Benita,” went on the old man, “to tell you the truth, I wish heartily that we had left this business alone. I don’t believe that any good will come of it, and certainly it has brought enough trouble already. That old prophet of a Molimo has the second sight, or something like it, and he does not hide his opinion, but keeps chuckling away in that dreadful place, and piping out his promises of ill to be.”