Over the pass father and daughter struggled, Benita riding; after them, perhaps sixty yards away, ran the Matabele, gathered in a knot now upon the narrow, ancient road, bordered by steep hillsides.
Then suddenly from all about them, as it appeared to Benita, broke out the blaze and roar of rifles, rapid and continuous. Down went the Matabele by twos and threes, till at last it seemed as though but
quite a few of them were left upon their feet, and those came on no more; they turned and fled from the neck of the narrow pass to the open slope beyond.
Benita sank to the ground, and the next thing that she could remember was hearing the soft voice of Jacob Meyer, who said:
“So you have returned from your ride, Miss Clifford, and perhaps it was as well that the thought came from you to me that you wished me to meet you here in this very place.”
XVI.
Back At Bambatse
How they reached Bambatse Benita never could remember, but afterwards she was told that both she and her father were carried upon litters made of ox-hide shields. When she came to her own mind again, it was to find herself lying in her tent outside the mouth of the cave within the third enclosure of the temple-fortress. Her feet were sore and her bones ached, physical discomforts that brought back to her in a flash all the terrors through which she had passed.
Again she saw the fierce pursuing Matabele; again heard their cruel shouts and the answering crack of the rifles; again, amidst the din and the gathering darkness, distinguished the gentle, foreign voice of Meyer speaking his words of sarcastic greeting. Next oblivion fell upon her, and after it a dim memory of being helped up the hill with the sun pouring on her back and assisted to climb the steep steps of the wall by means of a rope placed around her. Then forgetfulness again.
The flap of her tent was drawn aside and she shrank back upon her bed, shutting her eyes for fear lest they should fall upon the face of Jacob Meyer. Feeling that it was not he, or learning it perhaps from the footfall, she opened them a little, peeping at her visitor from between her long lashes. He proved to be—not Jacob or her father, but the old Molimo, who stood beside her holding in his hand a gourd filled with goat’s milk. Then she sat up and smiled at him, for Benita had grown very fond of this ancient man, who was so unlike anyone that she had ever met.
“Greeting, Lady,” he said softly, smiling back at her with his lips and dreamy eyes, for his old face did not seem to move beneath its thousand wrinkles. “I bring you milk. Drink; it is fresh and you need food.”
So she took the gourd and drank to the last drop, for it seemed to her that she had never tasted anything so delicious.
“Good, good,” murmured the Molimo; “now you will be well again.”
“Yes, I shall get well,” she answered; “but oh! what of my father?”
“Fear not; he is still sick, but he will recover also. You shall see him soon.”
“I have drunk all the milk,” she broke out; “there is none left for him.”
“Plenty, plenty,” he answered, waving his thin hand. “There are two cups full—one for each. We have not many she-goats down below, but the best of their milk is saved for you.”
“Tell me all that has happened, Father,” and the old priest, who liked her to call him by that name, smiled again with his eyes, and squatted down in the corner of the tent.
“You went away, you remember that you would go, although I told you that you must come back. You refused my wisdom and you went, and I have learned all that befell you and how you two escaped the impi. Well, that night after sunset, when you did not return, came the Black One—yes, yes, I mean Meyer, whom we name so because of his beard, and,” he added deliberately, “his heart. He came running down the hill asking for you, and I gave him the letter.