“Now I have something to say to you. It was unkind of you to run away and leave me like that, not honourable either. Indeed,” he added with a sudden outbreak of the panther ferocity, “had you alone been concerned, Clifford, I tell you frankly that when we met again, I should have shot you. Traitors deserve to be shot, don’t they?”
“Please stop talking to my father like that,” broke in Benita in a stern voice, for her anger had overcome her fear. “Also it is I whom you should blame.”
“It is a pleasure to obey you,” he answered bowing; “I will never mention the subject any more. Nor do I blame you—who could?—not Jacob Meyer. I quite understand that you found it very dull up here, and ladies must be allowed their fancies. Also you have come back; so why talk of the matter? But listen: on one point I have made up my mind; for your own sake you shall not go away any more until we leave
this together. When I had finished carrying up the food I made sure of that. If you go to look to-morrow morning you will find that no one can come up that wall—and, what is more, no one can go down it. Moreover, that I may be quite certain, in future I shall sleep near the stair myself.”
Benita and her father stared at each other.
“The Molimo has a right to come,” she said; “it is his sanctuary.”
“Then he must celebrate his worship down below for a little while. The old fool pretends to know everything, but he never guessed what I was going to do. Besides, we don’t want him breaking in upon our privacy, do we? He might see the gold when we find it, and rob us of it afterwards.”
XVII.
The First Experiment
Again Benita and her father stared at each other blankly, almost with despair. They were trapped, cut off from all help; in the power of a man who was going mad. Mr. Clifford said nothing. He was old and growing feeble; for years, although he did not know it, Meyer had dominated him, and never more so than in this hour of stress and bewilderment. Moreover, the man had threatened to murder him, and he was afraid, not so much for himself as for his daughter. If he were to die now, what would happen to her, left alone with Jacob Meyer? The knowledge of his own folly, understood too late, filled him with shame. How could he have been so wicked as to bring a girl upon such a quest in the company of an unprincipled Jew, of whose past he knew nothing except that it was murky and dubious? He had committed a great crime, led on by a love of lucre, and the weight of it pressed upon his tongue and closed his lips; he knew not what to say.
For a little while Benita was silent also; hope died within her. But she was a bold-spirited woman, and by degrees her courage re-asserted itself. Indignation filled her breast and shone through her dark eyes. Suddenly she turned upon Jacob, who sat before them smoking his pipe and enjoying their discomfiture.
“How dare you?” she asked in a low, concentrated voice. “How dare you, you coward?”
He shrank a little beneath her scorn and anger; then seemed to recover and brace himself, as one does who feels that a great struggle is at hand, upon the issue of which everything depends.
“Do not be angry with me,” he answered. “I cannot bear it. It hurts— ah! you don’t know how it hurts. Well, I will tell you, and before your father, for that is more honourable. I dare—for your sake.”
“For my sake? How can it benefit me to be cooped up in this horrible place with you? I would rather trust myself with the Makalanga, or even,” she added with bitter scorn, “even with those bloody-minded Matabele.”
“You ran away from them very fast a little while ago, Miss Clifford. But you do not understand me. When I said for your sake, I meant for my own. See, now. You tried to leave me the other day and did not succeed. Another time you might succeed, and then—what would happen to me?”