“Go on.”
“Father, I think that he is going mad, and it is not pleasant for us to be cooped up here alone with a madman, especially when he has begun to speak to me as he does now.”
“You don’t mean that he has been impertinent to you,” said the old man, flushing up, “for if so——”
“No, not impertinent—as yet,” and she told him what had passed between Meyer and herself, adding, “You see, father, I detest this man; indeed, I want to have nothing to do with any man; for me all that is over and done with,” and she gave a dry little sob which appeared to come from her very heart. “And yet, he seems to be getting some kind of power over me. He follows me about with his eyes, prying into my mind, and I feel that he is beginning to be able to read it. I can bear no more. Father, father, for God’s sake, take me away from this hateful hill and its gold and its dead, and let us get out into the veld again together.”
“I should be glad enough, dearest,” he answered. “I have had plenty of this wildgoose chase, which I was so mad as to be led into by the love of wealth. Indeed, I am beginning to believe that if it goes on much longer I shall leave my bones here.”
“And if such a dreadful thing as that were to happen, what would become of me, alone with Jacob Meyer?” she asked quietly. “I might even be driven to the same fate as that poor girl two hundred years ago,” and she pointed to the cone of rock behind her.
“For Heaven’s sake, don’t talk like that!” he broke in.
“Why not? One must face things, and it would be better than Jacob Meyer; for who would protect me here?”
Mr. Clifford walked up and down for a few minutes, while his daughter watched him anxiously.
“I can see no plan,” he said, stopping opposite her. “We cannot take the waggon even if there are enough oxen left to draw it, for it is his as much as mine, and I am sure that he will never leave this treasure unless he is driven away.”
“And I am sure I hope that he will not. But, father, the horses are our own; it was his that died, you remember. We can ride away on them.”
He stared at her and answered:
“Yes, we could ride away to our deaths. Suppose they got sick or lame; suppose we meet the Matabele, or could find no game to shoot; suppose one of us fell ill—oh! and a hundred things. What then?”
“Why, then it is just as well to perish in the wilderness as here, where our risks are almost as great. We must take our chance, and trust to God. Perhaps He will be merciful and help us. Listen now, father. To-morrow is Sunday, when you and I do no work that we can help. Mr. Meyer is a Jew, and he won’t waste Sunday. Well now, I will say that I want to go down to the outer wall to fetch some clothes which I left in the waggon, and to take others for the native women to wash, and of course you will come with me. Perhaps he will be deceived, and stay behind, especially as he has been there to-day. Then we can get the horses and guns and ammunition, and anything else that we can carry in the way of food, and persuade the old Molimo to open the gate for us. You know, the little side gate that cannot be seen from up here, and before Mr. Meyer misses us and comes to look, we shall be twenty miles away, and—horses can’t be overtaken by a man on foot.”
“He will say that we have deserted him, and that will be true.”
“You can leave a letter with the Molimo explaining that it was my fault, that I was getting ill and thought that I should die, and that you knew it would not be fair to ask him to come, and so to lose the treasure, to every halfpenny of which he is welcome when it is found. Oh! father, don’t hesitate any longer; say that you will take me away from Mr. Meyer.”