Chapter 17

For she knew him at last--dead or living she cared not--she knew him, and out of hell crept to him, her heaven and her home!

XXIII

BENITA GIVES HER ANSWER

“Your answer, Benita,” Robert said dreamily, for to him this thing seemed a dream.

“Have I not given it, months ago? Oh, I remember, it was only in my heart, not on my lips, when that blow fell on me! Then afterwards I heard what you had done and I nearly died. I wished that I might die to be with you, but I could not. I was too strong; now I understand the reason. Well, it seems that we are both living, and whatever happens, here is my answer, if it is worth anything to you. Once and for all, I love you. I am not ashamed to say it, because very soon we may be separated for the last time. But I cannot talk now, I have come here to save my father.”

“Where is he, Benita?”

“Dying in a cave up at the top of that fortress. I got down by a secret way. Are the Matabele still here?”

“Very much so,” he answered. “But something has happened. My guard woke me an hour ago to say that a messenger had arrived from their king, Lobengula, and now they are talking over the message. That is how you came to get through, otherwise the sentries would have assegaied you, the brutes,” and he drew her to him and kissed her passionately for the first time; then, as though ashamed of himself, let her go.

“Have you anything to eat?” she asked. “I--I--am starving. I didn’t feel it before, but now----”

“Starving, you starving, while I--look, here is some cold meat which I could not get down last night, and put by for the Kaffirs. Great Heavens! that I should feed you with Kaffirs’ leavings! But it is good--eat it.”

Benita took the stuff in her fingers and swallowed it greedily; she who for days had lived on nothing but a little biscuit and biltong. It tasted delicious to her--never had she eaten anything so good. And all the while he watched her with glowing eyes.

“How can you look at me?” she said at length. “I must be horrible; I have been living in the dark and crawling through mud. I trod upon a crocodile!” and she shuddered.

“Whatever you are I never want to see you different,” he answered slowly. “To me you are most beautiful.”

Even then, wreck as she was, the poor girl flushed, and there was a mist in her eyes as she looked up and said:

“Thank you. I don’t care now what happens to me, and what has happened doesn’t matter at all. But can we get away?”

“I don’t know,” he answered; “but I doubt it. Go and sit on the waggon-box for a few minutes while I dress, and we will see.”

Benita went. The mist was thinning now, and through it she saw a sight at which her heart sank, for between her and the mount Bambatse Matabele were pouring towards their camp on the river’s edge. They were cut off. A couple of minutes later Robert joined her, and as he came she looked at him anxiously in the growing light. He seemed older than when they had parted on the _Zanzibar_; changed, too, for now his face was serious, and he had grown a beard; also, he appeared to limp.

“I am afraid there is an end,” she said, pointing to the Matabele below.

“Yes, it looks like it. But like you, I say, what does it matter now?” and he took her hand in his, adding: “let us be happy while we can if only for a few minutes. They will be here presently.”

“What are you?” she asked. “A prisoner?”

“That’s it. I was following you when they captured me; for I have been here before and knew the way. They were going to kill me on general principles, only it occurred to one of them who was more intelligent than the rest that I, being a white man, might be able to show them how to storm the place. Now I was sure that you were there, for I saw you standing on that point, though they thought you were the Spirit of Bambatse. So I wasn’t anxious to help them, for then--you know what happens when the Matabele are the stormers! But--as you still lived--I wasn’t anxious to die either. So I set them to work to dig a hole with their assegais and sharp axes, through granite. They have completed exactly twenty feet of it, and I reckon that there are one hundred and forty to go. Last night they got tired of that tunnel and talked of killing me again, unless I could show them a better plan. Now all the fat is in the fire, and I don’t know what is to happen. Hullo! here they come. Hide in the waggon, quick!”

Benita obeyed, and from under cover of the tent where the Matabele could not see her, watched and listened. The party that approached consisted of a chief and about twenty men, who marched behind him as a guard. Benita knew that chief. He was the captain Maduna, he of the royal blood whose life she had saved. By his side was a Natal Zulu, Robert Seymour’s driver, who could speak English and acted as interpreter.

“White man,” said Maduna, “a message has reached us from our king. Lobengula makes a great war and has need of us. He summons us back from this petty fray, this fight against cowards who hide behind walls, whom otherwise we would have killed, everyone, yes, if we sat here till we grew old. So for this time we leave them alone.”

Robert answered politely that he was glad to hear it, and wished them a good journey.

“Wish yourself a good journey, white man,” was the stern reply.

“Why? Do you desire that I should accompany you to Lobengula?”

“No, you go before us to the kraal of the Black One who is even greater than the child of Moselikatse, to that king who is called Death.”

Robert crossed his arms and said: “Say on.”

“White man, I promised you life if you would show us how to pierce or climb those walls. But you have made fools of us--you have set us to cut through rock with spears and axes. Yes, to hoe at rock as though it were soil--you who with the wisdom of your people could have taught us some better way. Therefore we must go back to our king disgraced, having failed in his service, and therefore you who have mocked us shall die. Come down now, that we may kill you quietly, and learn whether or no you are a brave man.”

Then it was, while her lover’s hand was moving towards the pistol hidden beneath his coat, that Benita, with a quick movement, emerged from the waggon in which she crouched, and stood up at his side upon the driving box.

“_Ow!_” said the Captain. “It is the White Maiden. Now how came she here? Surely this is great magic. Can a woman fly like a bird?” and they stared at her amazed.

“What does it matter how I came, chief Maduna?” she answered in Zulu. “Yet I will tell you why I came. It was to save you from dipping your spear in the innocent blood, and bringing on your head the curse of the innocent blood. Answer me now. Who gave you and your brother yonder your lives within that wall when the Makalanga would have torn you limb from limb, as hyenas tear a buck? Was it I or another?”

“Inkosi-kaas--Chieftainess,” replied the great Captain, raising his broad spear in salute. “It was you and no other.”

“And what did you promise me then, Prince Maduna?”

“Maiden of high birth, I promised you your life and your goods, should you ever fall into my power.”

“Does a leader of the Amandabele, one of the royal blood, lie like a Mashona or a Makalanga slave? Does he do worse--tell half the truth only, like a cheat who buys and keeps back half the price?” she asked contemptuously. “Maduna, you promised me not one life, but two, two lives and the goods that belong to both. Ask of your brother there, who was witness of the words.”

“Great Heavens!” muttered Robert Seymour to himself, as he looked at Benita standing with outstretched hand and flashing eyes. “Who would have thought that a starved woman could play such a part with death on the hazard?”

“It is as this daughter of white chiefs says,” answered the man to whom she had appealed. “When she freed us from the fangs of those dogs, you promised her two lives, my brother, one for yours and one for mine.”

“Hear him,” went on Benita. “He promised me two lives, and how did this prince of the royal blood keep his promise? When I and the old man, my father, rode hence in peace, he loosed his spears upon us; he hunted us. Yet it was the hunters who fell into the trap, not the hunted.”

“Maiden,” replied Maduna, in a shamed voice, “that was your fault, not mine. If you had appealed to me I would have let you go. But you killed my sentry, and then the chase began, and ere I knew who you were my runners were out of call.”

“Little time had I to ask your mercy; but so be it,” said Benita. “I accept your word, and I forgive you that offence. Now fulfil your oath. Begone and leave us in peace.”

Still Maduna hesitated.

“I must make report to the king,” he said. “What is this white man to you that I should spare him? I give you your life and your father’s life, not that of this white man who has tricked us. If he were your father, or your brother, it would be otherwise. But he is a stranger, and belongs to me, not to you.”

“Maduna,” she asked, “do women such as I am share the waggon of a stranger? This man is more to me than father or brother. He is my husband, and I claim his life.”

“_Ow!_” said the spokesman of the audience, “we understand now. She is his wife, and has a right to him. If she were not his wife she would not be in his waggon. It is plain that she speaks the truth, though how she came here we do not know, unless, as we think, she is a witch,” and he smiled at his own cleverness.

“Inkosi-kaas,” said Maduna, “you have persuaded me. I give you the life of that white fox, your husband, and I hope that he will not trick you as he has tricked us, and set you to hoe rock instead of soil,” and he looked at Robert wrathfully. “I give him to you and all his belongings. Now, is there anything else that you would ask?”

“Yes,” replied Benita coolly, “you have many oxen there which you took from the other Makalanga. Mine are eaten and I need cattle to draw my waggon. I ask a present of twenty of them, and,” she added by an afterthought, “two cows with young calves, for my father is sick yonder, and must have milk.”

“Oh! give them to her. Give them to her,” said Maduna, with a tragic gesture that in any other circumstances would have made Benita laugh. “Give them to her and see that they are good ones, before she asks our shields and spears also--for after all she saved my life.”

So men departed to fetch those cows and oxen, which presently were driven in.

While this talk was in progress the great impi of the Matabele was massing for the march, on the flat ground a little to the right of them. Now they began to come past in companies, preceded by the lads who carried the mats and cooking-pots and drove the captured sheep and cattle. By this time the story of Benita, the witch-woman whom they could not kill, and who had mysteriously flown from the top of the peak into their prisoner’s waggon, had spread among them. They knew also that it was she who had saved their general from the Makalanga, and those who had heard her admired the wit and courage with which she had pleaded and won her cause. Therefore, as they marched past in their companies, singing a song of abuse and defiance of the Makalanga who peered at them from the top of the wall, they lifted their great spears in salutation to Benita standing upon the waggon-box.

Indeed, they were a wondrous and imposing spectacle, such a one as few white women have ever seen.

At length all were gone except Maduna and a body-guard of two hundred men. He walked to the front of the waggon and addressed Robert Seymour.

“Listen, you fox who set us to hoe granite,” he said indignantly. “You have outwitted us this time, but if ever I meet you again, then you die. Now I have given you your life, but,” he added, almost pleadingly, “if you are really brave as white men are said to be, will you not come down and fight me man to man for honour’s sake?”

“I think not,” answered Robert, when he understood this challenge, “for what chance should I have against so brave a warrior? Also this lady--my wife--needs my help on her journey home.”

Maduna turned from him contemptuously to Benita.

“I go,” he said, “and fear not; you will meet no Matabele on that journey. Have you more words for me, O Beautiful One, with a tongue of oil and a wit that cuts like steel?”

“Yes,” answered Benita. “You have dealt well with me, and in reward I give you of my good luck. Bear this message to your king from the White Witch of Bambatse, for I am she and no other. That he leave these Makalanga, my servants, to dwell unharmed in their ancient home, and that he lift no spear against the White Men, lest that evil which the Molimo foretold to you, should fall upon him.”

“Ah!” said Maduna, “now I understand how you flew from the mountain top into this man’s waggon. You are not a white woman, you are the ancient Witch of Bambatse herself. You have said it, and with such it is not well to war. Great lady of Magic, Spirit from of old, I salute you, and I thank you for your gifts of life and fortune. Farewell.”

Then he, too, stalked away at the head of his guard, so that presently, save for the three Zulu servants and the herd of cattle, Robert and Benita were left utterly alone.

Now, her part played and the victory won, Benita burst into tears and fell upon her lover’s breast.

Presently she remembered, and freed herself from his arms.

“I am a selfish wretch,” she said. “How dare I be so happy when my father is dead or dying? We must go at once.”

“Go where?” asked the bewildered Robert.

“To the top of the mountain, of course, whence I came. Oh! please don’t stop to question me, I’ll tell you as we walk. Stay,” and she called to the Zulu driver, who with an air of utter amazement was engaged in milking one of the gift cows, to fill two bottles with the milk.

“Had we not better shout to the Makalanga to let us in?” suggested Robert, while this was being done, and Benita wrapped some cooked meat in a cloth.

“No, no. They will think I am what I said I was--the Witch of Bambatse, whose appearance heralds misfortune, and fear a trap. Besides, we could not climb the top wall. You must follow my road, and if you can trust them, bring two of those men with you with lanterns. The lad can stop to herd the cattle.”

Three minutes later, followed by the two Zulus, they were walking--or rather, running--along the banks of the Zambesi.

“Why do you not come quicker?” she asked impatiently. “Oh, I beg your pardon, you are lame. Robert, what made you lame, and oh! why are you not dead, as they all swore you were, you, you--hero, for I know that part of the story?”

“For a very simple reason, Benita: because I didn’t die. When that Kaffir took the watch from me I was insensible, that’s all. The sun brought me to life afterwards. Then some natives turned up, good people in their way, although I could not understand a word they said. They made a stretcher of boughs and carried me for some miles to their kraal inland. It hurt awfully, for my thigh was broken, but I arrived at last. There a Kaffir doctor set my leg in his own fashion; it has left it an inch shorter than the other, but that’s better than nothing.

“In that place I lay for two solid months, for there was no white man within a hundred miles, and if there had been I could not have communicated with him. Afterwards I spent another month limping up towards Natal, until I could buy a horse. The rest is very short. Hearing of my reported death, I came as fast as I could to your father’s farm, Rooi Krantz, where I learned from the old vrouw Sally that you had taken to treasure-hunting, the same treasure that I told you of on the _Zanzibar_.

“So I followed your spoor, met the servants whom you had sent back, who told me all about you, and in due course, after many adventures, as they say in a book, walked into the camp of our friends, the Matabele.

“They were going to kill me at once, when suddenly you appeared upon that point of rock, glittering like--like the angel of the dawn. I knew that it must be you, for I had found out about your attempted escape, and how you were hunted back to this place. But the Matabele all thought that it was the Spirit of Bambatse, who has a great reputation in these parts. Well, that took off their attention, and afterwards, as I told you, it occurred to them that I might be an engineer. You know the rest, don’t you?”

“Yes,” answered Benita softly. “I know the rest.”

Then they plunged into the reeds and were obliged to stop talking, since they must walk in single file. Presently Benita looked up and saw that she was under the thorn which grew in the cleft of the rock. Also, with some trouble she found the bunch of reeds that she had bent down, to mark the inconspicuous hole through which she had crept, and by it her lantern. It seemed weeks since she had left it there.

“Now,” she said, “light your candles, and if you see a crocodile, please shoot.”

XXIV

THE TRUE GOLD

“Let me go first,” said Robert.

“No,” answered Benita. “I know the way; but please do watch for that horrible crocodile.”

Then she knelt down and crept into the hole, while after her came Robert, and after him the two Zulus, who protested that they were not ant-bears to burrow under ground. Lifting the lantern she searched the cave, and as she could see no signs of the crocodile, walked on boldly to where the stair began.

“Be quick,” she whispered to Robert, for in that place it seemed natural to speak low. “My father is above and near his death. I am dreadfully afraid lest we should be too late.”

So they toiled up the endless steps, a very strange procession, for the two Zulus, bold men enough outside, were shaking with fright, till at length Benita clambered out of the trap door on to the floor of the treasure chamber, and turned to help Robert, whose lameness made him somewhat slow and awkward.

“What’s all that?” he asked, pointing to the hide sacks, while they waited for the two scared Kaffirs to join them.

“Oh!” she answered indifferently, “gold, I believe. Look, there is some of it on the floor, over Benita da Ferreira’s footsteps.”

“Gold! Why, it must be worth----! And who on earth is Benita da Ferreira?”

“I will tell you afterwards. She has been dead two or three hundred years; it was her gold, or her people’s, and those are her footprints in the dust. How stupid you are not to understand! Never mind the hateful stuff; come on quickly.”

So they passed the door which she had opened that morning, and clambered up the remaining stairway. So full was Benita of terrors that she could never remember how she climbed them. Suppose that the foot of the crucifix had swung to; suppose that her father were dead; suppose that Jacob Meyer had broken into the cave? Well for herself she was no longer afraid of Jacob Meyer. Oh, they were there! The heavy door _had_ begun to close, but mercifully her bit of rock kept it ajar.

“Father! Father!” she cried, running towards the tent.

No answer came. She threw aside the flap, held down the lantern and looked. There he lay, white and still. She was too late!

“He is dead, he is dead!” she wailed. Robert knelt down at her side, and examined the old man, while she waited in an agony.

“He ought to be,” he said slowly; “but, Benita, I don’t think he is. I can feel his heart stir. No, don’t stop to talk. Pour out some of that squareface, and here, mix it with this milk.”

She obeyed, and while he held up her father’s head, with a trembling hand emptied a little of the drink into his mouth. At first it ran out again, then almost automatically he swallowed some, and they knew that he was alive, and thanked Heaven. Ten minutes later Mr. Clifford was sitting up staring at them with dull and wondering eyes, while outside the two Zulus, whose nerves had now utterly broken down, were contemplating the pile of skeletons in the corner and the white towering crucifix, and loudly lamenting that they should have been brought to perish in this place of bones and ghosts.

“Is it Jacob Meyer who makes that noise?” asked Mr. Clifford faintly. “And, Benita, where have you been so long, and--who is this gentleman with you? I seem to remember his face.”

“He is the white man who was in the waggon, father, an old friend come to life again. Robert, can’t you stop the howling of those Kaffirs? Though I am sure I don’t wonder that they howl; I should have liked to do so for days. Oh! father, father, don’t you understand me? We are saved, yes, snatched out of hell and the jaws of death.”

“Is Jacob Meyer dead, then?” he asked.

“I don’t know where he is or what has happened to him, and I don’t care, but perhaps we had better find out. Robert, there is a madman outside. Make the Kaffirs pull down that wall, would you? and catch him.”

“What wall? What madman?” he asked, staring at her.

“Oh, of course you don’t know that, either. You know nothing. I’ll show you, and you must be prepared, for probably he will shoot at us.”

“It all sounds a little risky, doesn’t it?” asked Robert doubtfully.

“Yes, but we must take the risk. We cannot carry my father down that place, and unless we can get him into light and air soon, he will certainly die. The man outside is Jacob Meyer, his partner--you remember him. All these weeks of hardship and treasure-hunting have sent him off his head, and he wanted to mesmerize me and----”

“And what? Make love to you?”

She nodded, then went on:

“So when he could not get his way about the mesmerism and so forth, he threatened to murder my father, and that is why we had to hide in this cave and build ourselves up, till at last I found the way out.”

“Amiable gentleman, Mr. Jacob Meyer, now as always,” said Robert flushing. “To think that you should have been in the power of a scoundrel like that! Well, I hope to come square with him.”

“Don’t hurt him, dear, unless you are obliged. Remember he is not responsible. He thought he saw a ghost here the other day.”

“Unless he behaves himself he is likely to see a good many soon,” muttered Robert.

Then they went down the cave, and as silently as possible began to work at the wall, destroying in a few minutes what had been built up with so much labour. When it was nearly down the Zulus were told that there was an enemy outside, and that they must help to catch him if necessary, but were not to harm him. They assented gladly enough; indeed, to get out of that cave they would have faced half a dozen enemies.

Now there was a hole right through the wall, and Robert bade Benita stand to one side. Then as soon as his eyes became accustomed to the little light that penetrated there, he drew his revolver and beckoned the Kaffirs to follow. Down the passage they crept, slowly, lest they should be blinded when they came to the glare of the sunshine, while Benita waited with a beating heart.

A little time went by, she never knew how long, till suddenly a rifle shot rang through the stillness. Benita was able to bear no more. She rushed down the winding passage, and presently, just beyond its mouth, in a blurred and indistinct fashion saw that the two white men were rolling together on the ground, while the Kaffirs sprang round watching for an opportunity to seize one of them. At that moment they succeeded, and Robert rose, dusting his hands and knees.

“Amiable gentleman, Mr. Jacob Meyer,” he repeated. “I could have killed him as his back was towards me, but didn’t because you asked me not. Then I stumbled with my lame leg, and he whipped round and let drive with his rifle. Look,” and he showed her where the bullet had cut his ear. “Luckily I got hold of him before he could loose off another.”

Benita could find no words, her heart was too full of thankfulness. Only she seized Robert’s hand and kissed it. Then she looked at Jacob.

He was lying upon the broad of his back, the two big Zulus holding his arms and legs; his lips were cracked, blue and swollen; his face was almost black, but his eyes still shone bright with insanity and hate.