“So be it then,” answered Mr. Clifford, and as he spoke, hearing a sound, they looked up and saw Jacob approaching them.
Luckily he was so occupied with his own thoughts that he never noted the guilty air upon their faces, and they had time to compose themselves a little. But even thus his suspicions were aroused.
“What are you talking of so earnestly?” he asked.
“We were wondering how you were getting on with the Makalanga,” answered Benita, fibbing boldly, “and whether you would persuade them to face the ghosts. Did you?”
“Not I,” he answered with a scowl. “Those ghosts are our worst enemies in this place; the cowards swore that they would rather die. I should have liked to take some of them at their word and make ghosts of them; but I remembered the situation and didn’t. Don’t be afraid, Miss Clifford, I never even lost my temper, outwardly at any rate. Well, there it is; if they won’t help us, we must work the harder. I’ve got a new plan, and we’ll begin on it to-morrow.”
“Not to-morrow, Mr. Meyer,” replied Benita with a smile. “It is Sunday, and we rest on Sunday, you know.”
“Oh! I forgot. The Makalanga with their ghosts and you with your Sunday—really I do not know which is the worse. Well, then, I must do my own share and yours too, I suppose,” and he turned with a shrug of his shoulders.
XIV.
The Flight
The next morning, Sunday, Meyer went to work on his new plan. What it was Benita did not trouble to inquire, but she gathered that it had
something to do with the measuring out of the chapel cave into squares for the more systematic investigation of each area. At twelve o’clock he emerged for his midday meal, in the course of which he remarked that it was very dreary working in that place alone, and that he would be glad when it was Monday, and they could accompany him. His words evidently disturbed Mr. Clifford not a little, and even excited some compunction in the breast of Benita.
What would his feelings be, she wondered, when he found that they had run away, leaving him to deal with their joint undertaking single handed! Almost was she minded to tell him the whole truth; yet—and this was a curious evidence of the man’s ascendancy over her—she did not. Perhaps she felt that to do so would be to put an end to their scheme, since then by argument, blandishments, threats, force, or appeal to their sense of loyalty, it mattered not which, he would bring about its abandonment. But she wanted to fulfil that scheme, to be free of Bambatse, its immemorial ruins, its graveyard cave, and the ghoul, Jacob Meyer, who could delve among dead bones and in living hearts with equal skill and insight, and yet was unable to find the treasure that lay beneath either of them.
So they hid the truth, and talked with feverish activity about other things, such as the drilling of the Makalanga, and the chances of an attack by the Matabele, which happily now seemed to be growing small; also of the conditions of their cattle, and the prospect of obtaining more to replace those that had died. Indeed, Benita went farther; in her new-found zeal of deception she proceeded to act a lie, yes, even with her father’s reproachful eyes fixed upon her. Incidentally she mentioned that they were going to have an outing, to climb down the ladder and visit the Makalanga camp between the first and second walls and mix with the great world for a few hours; also to carry their washing to be done there, and bring up some clean clothes and certain
books which she had left below.
Jacob came out of his thoughts and calculations, and listened gloomily.
“I have half a mind to come with you,” he said, words at which Benita shivered. “It certainly is most cursed lonesome in that cave, and I seem to hear things in it, as though those old bones were rattling, sounds like sighs and whispers too, which are made by the draught.”
“Well, why don’t you?” asked Benita.