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CHAPTER XXII THE VOICE OF THE LIVING
Mr. Clifford was awake again now.
"Where have you been?" he asked querulously in a thin voice. "I wanted
you." Then as the light from the candle shone upon it, he noted the
change that had come over her pale face, and added: "What has
happened? Is Meyer dead? Are we free?"
Benita shook her head. "He was alive a few hours ago, for I could hear
him raving and shouting outside the wall we built. But, father, it has
all come back to me; I believe that I have found it."
"What has come back? What have you found? Are you mad, too, like
Jacob?"
"What something told me when I was in the trance which afterwards I
forgot, but now remember. And I have found the passage which leads to
where they hid the gold. It begins behind the crucifix, where no one
ever thought of looking."
This matter of the gold did not seem to interest Mr. Clifford. In his
state all the wealth beneath the soil of Africa would not have
appealed to him. Moreover, he hated the name of that accursed
treasure, which was bringing them to such a miserable end.
"Where does the passage run? Have you looked?" he asked.
"Not yet, but the voice in me said--I mean, I dreamed--that it goes
down to the river-side. If you leant on me do you think that you could
walk?"
"Not one inch," he answered. "Here where I am I shall die."
"No, no, don't talk like that. We may be saved now that I have found a
way. Oh, if only you could--if only you could walk, or if I had the
strength to carry you!" and she wrung her hands and began to weep, so
weak was she.
Her father looked at her searchingly. Then he said:
"Well, love, I cannot, so there's an end. But you can, and you had
better go."
"What! And leave you? Never."
"Yes, and leave me. Look, there is but a little oil left and only a
few candles. The biscuits are done and neither of us can swallow that
biltong any more. I suppose that I am dying, and your health and
strength are failing you quickly in this darkness; if you stop here
you must soon follow me. And what is the alternative? The madman
outside--that is, if you could find strength to pull down the wall,
which I doubt. You had best go, Benita."
But still she said she would not.
"Do you not see," he added, "that it is my only chance of life? If you
go you may be able to bring me help before the end comes. Should there
be a passage the probability is that, although they know nothing of
it, it finishes somewhere by the wall of the first enclosure where the
Makalanga are. If so, you may find the Molimo, or if he is dead, Tamas
or one of the others, and they will help us. Go, Benita, go at once."
"I never thought of that," she answered in a changed voice. "Of
course, it may be so, if the passage goes down at all. Well, at least
I can look and come back to tell you."
Then Benita placed the remainder of the oil close by her father's
side, so that he could refill the lamp, for the use of his hands still
remained to him. Also, she set there such crumbs of biscuit as were
left, some of the biltong, a flask of Hollands, and a pail of water.
This done, she put on her long cloak, filled one of its pockets with
biltong, and the other with matches and three of the four remaining
candles. The fourth she insisted on leaving beside her father's bed.
When everything was ready she knelt down at his side, kissed him, and
from her heart put up a prayer that they might both live to meet
again, although she knew well that this they could scarcely hope to
do.
Had two people ever been in a more dreadful situation, she wondered,
as she looked at her father lying there, whom she must leave to fight
with Death alone in that awful place, while she went forth to meet him
in the unknown bowels of the earth!
Mr. Clifford read her thoughts. "Yes," he said, "it is a strange
parting and a wild errand. But who knows? It may please Providence to
take you through, and if not--why, our troubles will soon be over."
Then once more they kissed, and not daring to try to speak, Benita
tore herself away. Passing into the passage whereof the lower half of
the crucifix formed the door, she paused for a moment to examine it
and to place a fragment of rock in such fashion that it could not shut
again behind her. Her idea was that it worked by aid of some spring,
but now she saw that this was not so, as the whole mass hung upon
three stone hinges beautifully concealed. The dust and corrosion of
ages which had made this door so hard to open, by filling up the tiny
spaces between it and its framework, had also rendered these cracks
utterly imperceptible to the eye. So accurately was it fashioned,
indeed, that no one who did not know its secret would have discovered
it if they searched for months or years.
Though at the time Benita took little note of such details, the
passage beyond and the stair descending from it showed the same
perfect workmanship. Evidently this secret way dated not from the
Portuguese period, but from that of the Phœnicians or other ancients,
to whose treasure-chamber it was the approach, opening as it did from
their holy of holies, to which none were admitted save the head
priests. The passage, which was about seven feet high by four wide,
had been hewn out of the live rock of the mountain, for thousands of
little marks left by the workmen's chisels were still discernible upon
its walls. So it was with the stair, that had been but little used,
and remained fresh as the day when it was finished.
Down the steps, candle in hand, flitted Benita, counting them as she
went. The thirtieth brought her to a landing. Here it was that she saw
the first traces of that treasure which they had suffered so much to
find. Something glittered at her feet. She picked it up. It was a
little bar of gold weighing two or three ounces that doubtless had
been dropped there. Throwing it down again she looked in front of her,
and to her dismay saw a door of wood with iron bolts. But the bolts
had never been shot, and when she pulled at it the door creaked upon
its rusty hinges and opened. She was on the threshold of the treasure-
chamber!
It was square and of the size of a small room, packed on either side
almost to the low, vaulted roof with small bags of raw hide,
carelessly arranged. Quite near to the door one of these bags had
slipped down and burst open. It was filled with gold, some in ingots
and some in raw nuggets, for there they lay in a shining, scattered
heap. As she stooped to look it came into the mind of Benita that her
father had said that in her trance she had told them that one of the
bags of treasure was burst, and that the skin of which it had been
made was black and red. Behold! before her lay the burst bag, and the
colour of the hide was black and red.
She shivered. The thing was uncanny, terrible. Uncanny was it also to
see in the thick dust, which in the course of twenty or more of
centuries had gathered on the floor, the mark of footprints, those of
the last persons who had visited this place. There had been two of
them, a man and a woman, and they were no savages, for they wore
shoes. Benita placed her foot in the print left by that dead woman. It
filled it exactly, it might have been her own. Perhaps, she thought to
herself, that other Benita had descended here with her father, after
the Portuguese had hidden away their wealth, that she might be shown
where it was, and of what it consisted.
One more glance at all this priceless, misery-working gold, and on she
went, she who was seeking the gold of life and liberty for herself and
him who lay above. Supposing that the stairway ended there? She
stopped, she looked round, but could see no other door. To see the
better she halted and opened the glass of her lantern. Still she could
perceive nothing, and her heart sank. Yet why did the candle flicker
so fiercely? And why was the air in this deep place so fresh? She
walked forward a pace or two, then noticed suddenly that those
footprints of the dead that she was following disappeared immediately
in front of her, and she stopped.
It was but just in time. One step more and she would have fallen down
the mouth of a deep pit. Once it had been covered with a stone, but
this stone was removed, and had never been replaced. Look! there it
stood against the wall of the chamber. Well was this for Benita, since
her frail strength would not have sufficed to stir that massive block,
even if she had discovered its existence beneath the dust.
Now she saw that down the pit ran another ladderlike stair of stone,
very narrow and precipitous. Without hesitation she began its descent.
Down she went and down--one hundred steps, two hundred steps, two
hundred and seventy-five steps, and all the way wherever the dust had
gathered the man's and the woman's footprints ran before her. There
was a double line of them, one line going down and the other line
returning. Those that returned were the last, for often they appeared
over those that descended. Why had these dead people returned, Benita
wondered.
The stair had ended; now she was in a kind of natural cave, for its
sides and roof were rugged; moreover, water trickled and dripped from
them. It was not very large, and it smelt horribly of mud and other
things. Again she searched by the feeble light of her candle, but
could see no exit. Suddenly she saw something else, however, for
stepping on what she took to be a rock, to her horror it moved beneath
her. She heard a snap as of jaws, a violent blow upon the leg nearly
knocked her off her feet, and as she staggered backwards she saw a
huge and loathsome shape rushing away into the darkness. The rock that
she had trodden on was a crocodile which had its den here! With a
little scream she retreated to her stair. Death she had expected--but
to be eaten by crocodiles!
Yet as Benita stood there panting a blessed hope rose in her breast.
If a crocodile came in there it must also get out, and where such a
great creature could go, a woman would be able to follow. Also, she
must be near the water, since otherwise it could never have chosen
this hole for its habitation. She collected her courage, and having
clapped her hands and waved the lantern about to scare any alligators
that might still be lurking there, hearing and seeing nothing more,
she descended to where she had trodden upon the reptile. Evidently
this was its bed, for its long body had left an impress upon the mud,
and all about lay the remains of creatures that it had brought in for
food. Moreover, a path ran outwards, its well-worn trail distinct even
in that light.
She followed this path, which ended apparently in a blank wall. Then
it was that Benita guessed why those dead folks' footprints had
returned, for here had been a doorway which in some past age those who
used it built up with blocks of stone and cement. How, then, did the
crocodile get out? Stooping down she searched, and perceived, a few
yards to the right of the door, a hole that looked as though it were
water-worn. Now Benita thought that she understood. The rock was
softer here, and centuries of flood had eaten it away, leaving a crack
in the stratum which the crocodiles had found out and enlarged. Down
she went on her hands and knees, and thrusting the lantern in front of
her, crept along that noisome drain, for this was what it resembled.
And now--oh! now she felt air blowing in her face, and heard the sound
of reeds whispering, and water running, and saw hanging like a lamp in
the blue sky, a star--the morning star! Benita could have wept, she
could have worshipped it, yet she pushed on between rocks till she
found herself among tall reeds, and standing in water. She had gained
the banks of the Zambesi.
Instantly, by instinct as it were, Benita extinguished her candle,
fearing lest it should betray her, for constant danger had made her
very cunning. The dawn had not yet broken, but the waning moon and the
stars gave a good light. She paused to look. There above her towered
the outermost wall of Bambatse, against which the river washed, except
at such times as the present, when it was very low.
So she was not in the fortress as she had hoped, but without it, and
oh! what should she do? Go back again? How would that serve her father
or herself? Go on? Then she might fall into the hands of the Matabele
whose camp was a little lower down, as from her perch upon the top of
the cone she had seen that poor white man do. Ah! the white man! If
only he lived and she could reach him! Perhaps they had not killed him
after all. It was madness, yet she would try to discover; something
impelled her to take the risk. If she failed and escaped, perhaps then
she might call to the Makalanga, and they would let down a rope and
draw her up the wall before the Matabele caught her. She would not go
back empty-handed, to die in that dreadful place with her poor father.
Better perish here in the sweet air and beneath the stars, even if it
were upon a Matabele spear, or by a bullet from her own pistol.
She looked about her to take her bearings in case it should ever be
necessary for her to return to the entrance of the cave. This proved
easy, for a hundred or so feet above her--where the sheer face of the
cliff jutted out a little, at that very spot indeed on which tradition
said that the body of the Señora da Ferreira had struck in its fall,
and the necklace Benita wore to-day was torn from her--a stunted
mimosa grew in some cleft of the rock. To mark the crocodile run
itself she bent down a bunch of reeds, and having first lit a few
Tandstickor brimstone matches and thrown them about inside of it, that
the smell of them might scare the beast should it wish to return, she
set her lantern behind a stone near to the mouth of the hole.
Then Benita began her journey which, when the river was high, it would
not have been possible for her to make except by swimming. As it was,
a margin of marsh was left between her and the steep, rocky side of
the mount from which the great wall rose, and through this she made
her way. Never was she likely to forget that walk. The tall reeds
dripped their dew upon her until she was soaked; long, black-tailed
finches--saccaboolas the natives call them--flew up undisturbed, and
lobbed away across the river; owls flitted past and bitterns boomed at
the coming of the dawn. Great fish splashed also in the shallows, or
were they crocodiles? Benita hoped not--for one day she had seen
enough of crocodiles.
It was all very strange. Could she be the same woman, she wondered,
who not a year before had been walking with her cousins down
Westbourne Grove, and studying Whiteley's windows? What would these
cousins say now if they could see her, white-faced, large-eyed,
desperate, splashing through the mud upon the unknown banks of the
Zambesi, flying from death to death!
On she struggled, above her the pearly sky in which the stars were
fading, around her the wet reeds, and pervading all the heavy low-
lying mists of dawn. She was past the round of the walls, and at
length stood upon dry ground where the Matabele had made their camp.
But in that fog she saw no Matabele; probably their fires were out,
and she chanced to pass between the sentries. Instinctively, more than
by reason, she headed for that hillock upon which she had seen the
white man's waggon, in the vague hope that it might still be there. On
she struggled, still on, till at length she blundered against
something soft and warm, and perceived that it was an ox tied to a
trek-tow, beyond which were other oxen and a white waggon-cap.
So it /was/ still there! But the white man, where was he? Through the
dense mist Benita crept to the disselboom. Then, seeing and hearing
nothing, she climbed to the voorkissie and kneeling on it, separated
the tent flaps and peered into the waggon. Still she could see nothing
because of the mist, yet she heard something, a man breathing in his
sleep. Somehow she thought that it was a white man; a Kaffir did not
breathe like that. She did not know what to do, so remained kneeling
there. It seemed as though the man who was asleep began to feel her
presence, for he muttered to himself--surely the words were English!
Then quite suddenly he struck a match and lit a candle which stood in
a beer bottle by his side. She could not see his face while he lit the
match, for his arm hid it, and the candle burned up slowly. Then the
first thing she saw was the barrel of a revolver pointing straight at
her.
"Now, my black friend," said a pleasant voice, "down you go or I
shoot. One, two! Oh, my God!"
The candle burned up, its light fell upon the white, elfish face of
Benita, whose long dark hair streamed about her; it shone in her great
eyes. Still she could see nothing, for it dazzled her.
"Oh, my God!" said the voice again. "Benita! Benita! Have you come to
tell me that I must join you? Well, I am ready, my sweet, my sweet!
Now I shall hear your answer."
"Yes," she whispered, and crawling forward down the cartel Benita fell
upon his breast.
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!
Content of CHAPTER XXII THE VOICE OF THE LIVING [H. Rider Haggard's novel: Benita]
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