At these words Jacob gasped, then rapidly translated them, while the figure before them became silent, as though it felt that for the moment the power of his will was withdrawn.
“Speak on, I bid you,” he said, and she continued, the rich, slow voice dropping word after word from the lips of Benita in the alien speech that this Benita never knew.
“I answered that it was where it was, and that if they gave it up to any save the one appointed, then that fate which had befallen my people would befall theirs also. Yes, I gave it into their keeping until I came again, since with his dying breath my father had commanded me to reveal it to none, and I believed that I who was about to die should never come again.
“Then I made my last prayer, I kissed the golden crucifix that now hangs upon this breast wherein I dwell,” and the hand of the living Benita was lifted, and moving like the hand of a dead thing, slowly drew out the symbol from beneath the cloak, held it for a moment in the lamplight, and let it fall to its place again. “I put my hands before my eyes that I might not see, and I hurled myself from the pinnacle.”
Now the voice ceased, but from the lips came a dreadful sound, such as might be uttered by one whose bones are shattered upon rocks, followed by other sounds like those of one who chokes in water. They were so horrible to hear that Mr. Clifford nearly fainted, and even Jacob Meyer staggered and turned white as the white face of Benita.
“Wake her! For God’s sake, wake her!” said her father. “She is dying, as that woman died hundreds of years ago.”
“Not till she has told us where the gold is. Be quiet, you fool. She does not feel or suffer. It is the spirit within her that lives through the past again.”
Once more there was silence. It seemed as though the story were all told and the teller had departed.
“Benita da Ferreira,” said Meyer at length, “I command you, tell me, are you dead?”
“Oh! would that I were dead, as my body is dead!” wailed the lips of Benita. “Alas! I cannot die who suffer this purgatory, and must dwell on here alone until the destined day. Yes, yes, the spirit of her who was Benita da Ferreira must haunt this place in solitude. This is her doom, to be the guardian of that accursed gold which was wrung from the earth by cruelty and paid for with the lives of men.”
“Is it still safe?” whispered Jacob.
“I will look;” then after a pause, “I have looked. It is there, every grain of it, in ox-hide bags; only one of them has fallen and burst, that which is black and red.”
“Where is it?” he said again.
“I may not tell you; never, never.”
“Is there anyone whom you may tell?”
“Yes.”
“Whom?”
“Her in whose breast I lie.”
“Tell her then.”
“I have told her; she knows.”
“And may she tell me?”
“Let her guard the secret as she will. O my Guardian, I thank thee. My burden is departed; my sin of self-murder is atoned.”
“Benita da Ferreira, are you gone?”
No answer.
“Benita Clifford, do you hear me?”
“I hear you,” said the voice of Benita, speaking in English, although Jacob, forgetting, had addressed her in Portuguese.
“Where is the gold?”
“In my keeping.”
“Tell me, I command you.”
But no words came; though he questioned her many times no words came, till at last her head sank forward upon her knees, and in a faint voice she murmured:
“Loose me, or I die.”
XIX.
The Awaking
Still Jacob Meyer hesitated. The great secret was unlearned, and, if this occasion passed, might never be learned. But if he hesitated, Mr. Clifford did not. The knowledge of his child’s danger, the sense that her life was mysteriously slipping away from her under pressure of the ghastly spell in which she lay enthralled, stirred him to madness. His strength and manhood came back to him. He sprang straight at Meyer’s throat, gripped it with one hand, and with the other drew the knife he wore.