Benita, An African Romance

H >> H. Rider Haggard >> Benita, An African Romance


Curiously enough, this part of the search was left to Mr. Clifford and
Benita, since it was one that Jacob Meyer seemed reluctant to undertake.
A Jew by birth, and a man who openly professed his want of belief in
that or any other religion, he yet seemed to fear this symbol of the
Christian faith, speaking of it as horrible and unlucky; yes, he who,
without qualm or remorse, had robbed and desecrated the dead that
lay about its feet. Well, the crucifix told them nothing; but as Mr.
Clifford, lantern in hand, descended the ladder, which Benita held,
Jacob Meyer, who was in front of the altar, called to them excitedly
that he had found something.

"Then it is more than we have," said Mr. Clifford, as he laid down the
ladder and hurried to him.

Meyer was sounding the floor with a staff of wood--an operation which he
had only just began after the walls proved barren.

"Listen now," he said, letting the heavy staff drop a few paces to the
right of the altar, where it produced the hard, metallic clang that
comes from solid stone when struck. Then he moved to the front of the
altar and dropped it again, but now the note was hollow and reverberant.
Again and again he repeated the experiment, till they had exactly
mapped out where the solid rock ended and that which seemed to be hollow
began--a space of about eight feet square.

"We've got it," he said triumphantly. "That's the entrance to the place
where the gold is," and the others were inclined to agree with him.

Now it remained to put their theory to the proof--a task of no small
difficulty. Indeed, it took them three days of hard, continual work.
It will be remembered that the floor of the cave was cemented over, and
first of all this cement, which proved to be of excellent quality, being
largely composed of powdered granite, must be broken up. By the help
of a steel crowbar, which they had brought with them in the waggon,
at length that part of their task was completed, revealing the rock
beneath. By this time Benita was confident that, whatever might lie
below, it was not the treasure, since it was evident that the poor,
dying Portuguese would not have had the time or the strength to cement
it over. When she told the others so, however, Meyer, convinced that
he was on the right tack, answered that doubtless it was done by the
Makalanga after the Portuguese days, as it was well known that they
retained a knowledge of the building arts of their forefathers until
quite a recent period, when the Matabele began to kill them out.

When at length the cement was cleared away and the area swept, they
discovered--for there ran the line of it--that here a great stone was
set into the floor; it must have weighed several tons. As it was set in
cement, however, to lift it, even if they had the strength to work the
necessary levers, proved quite impossible. There remained only one thing
to be done--to cut a way through. When they had worked at this task for
several hours, and only succeeded in making a hole six inches deep,
Mr. Clifford, whose old bones ached and whose hands were very
sore, suggested that perhaps they might break it up with gunpowder.
Accordingly, a pound flask of that explosive was poured into the hole,
which they closed over with wet clay and a heavy rock, leaving a
quill through which ran an extemporized fuse of cotton wick. All being
prepared, their fuse was lit, and they left the cave and waited.

Five minutes afterwards the dull sound of an explosion reached their
ears, but more than an hour went by before the smoke and fumes would
allow them to enter the place, and then it was to find that the results
did not equal their expectations. To begin with, the slab was only
cracked--not shattered, since the strength of the powder had been
expended upwards, not downwards, as would have happened in the case of
dynamite, of which they had none. Moreover, either the heavy stone
which they had placed upon it, striking the roof of the cave, or the
concussion of the air, had brought down many tons of rock, and caused
wide and dangerous-looking cracks. Also, though she said nothing of it,
it seemed to Benita that the great white statue on the cross was leaning
a little further forward than it used to do. So the net result of the
experiment was that they were obliged to drag away great fragments of
the fallen roof that lay upon the stone, which remained almost as solid
and obdurate as before.

So there was nothing for it but to go on working with the crowbar. At
length, towards the evening of the third day of their labour, when the
two men were utterly tired out, a hole was broken through, demonstrating
the fact that beneath this cover lay a hollow of some sort. Mr.
Clifford, to say nothing of Benita, who was heartily weary of the
business, wished to postpone proceedings till the morrow, but Jacob
Meyer would not. So they toiled on until about eleven o'clock at night,
when at length the aperture was of sufficient size to admit a man. Now,
as in the case of the well, they let down a stone tied to a string, to
find that the place beneath was not more than eight feet deep. Then, to
ascertain the condition of the air, a candle was lowered, which at first
went out, but presently burnt well enough. This point settled, they
brought their ladder, whereby Jacob descended with a lantern.

In another minute they heard the sound of guttural German oaths rising
through the hole. Mr. Clifford asked what was the matter, and received
the reply that the place was a tomb, with nothing in it but an accursed
dead monk, information at which Benita could not help bursting into
laughter.

The end of it was that both she and her father went down also, and
there, sure enough, lay the remains of the old missionary in his cowl,
with an ivory crucifix about his neck, and on his breast a scroll
stating that he, Marco, born at Lisbon in 1438, had died at Bambatse in
the year 1503, having laboured in the Empire of Monomotapa for seventeen
years, and suffered great hardships and brought many souls to Christ.
The scroll added that it was he, who before he entered into religion was
a sculptor by trade, that had fashioned the figure on the cross in this
chapel out of that of the heathen goddess which had stood in the same
place from unknown antiquity. It ended with a request, addressed to all
good Christians in Latin, that they who soon must be as he was would
pray for his soul and not disturb his bones, which rested here in the
hope of a blessed resurrection.

When this pious wish was translated to Jacob Meyer by Mr. Clifford, who
still retained some recollection of the classics which he had painfully
acquired at Eton and Oxford, the Jew could scarcely contain his wrath.
Indeed, looking at his bleeding hands, instead of praying for the soul
of that excellent missionary, to reach whose remains he had laboured
with such arduous, incessant toil, he cursed it wherever it might be,
and unceremoniously swept the bones, which the document asked him not to
disturb, into a corner of the tomb, in order to ascertain whether there
was not, perhaps, some stair beneath them.

"Really, Mr. Meyer," said Benita, who, in spite of the solemnity of the
surroundings, could not control her sense of humour, "if you are not
careful the ghosts of all these people will haunt you."

"Let them haunt me if they can," he answered furiously. "I don't believe
in ghosts, and defy them all."

At this moment, looking up, Benita saw a figure gliding out of the
darkness into the ring of light, so silently that she started, for it
might well have been one of those ghosts in whom Jacob Meyer did not
believe. In fact, however, it was the old Molimo, who had a habit of
coming upon them thus.

"What says the white man?" he asked of Benita, while his dreamy eyes
wandered over the three of them, and the hole in the violated tomb.

"He says that he does not believe in spirits, and that he defies them,"
she answered.

"The white gold-seeker does not believe in spirits, and he defies them,"
Mambo repeated in his sing-song voice. "He does not believe in the
spirits that I see all around me now, the angry spirits of the dead,
who speak together of where he shall lie and of what shall happen to
him when he is dead, and of how they will welcome one who disturbs their
rest and defies and curses them in his search for the riches which he
loves. There is one standing by him now, dressed in a brown robe with a
dead man cut in ivory like to that," and he pointed to the crucifix in
Jacob's hands, "and he holds the ivory man above him and threatens him
with sleepless centuries of sorrow, when he is also one of those spirits
in which he does not believe."

Then Meyer's rage blazed out. He turned upon the Molimo and reviled
him in his own tongue, saying that he knew well where the treasure was
hidden, and that if he did not point it out he would kill him and send
him to his friends, the spirits. So savage and evil did he look that
Benita retreated a little way, while Mr. Clifford strove in vain to calm
him. But although Meyer laid his hand upon the knife in his belt and
advanced upon him, the old Molimo neither budged an inch nor showed the
slightest fear.

"Let him rave on," he said, when at length Meyer paused exhausted. "Just
so in a time of storm the lightnings flash and the thunder peals, and
the water foams down the face of rock; but then comes the sun again, and
the hill is as it has ever been, only the storm is spent and lost. I
am the rock, he is but the wind, the fire, and the rain. It is not
permitted that he should hurt me, and those spirits in whom he does not
believe treasure up his curses, to let them fall again like stones upon
his head."

Then, with a contemptuous glance at Jacob, the old man turned and glided
back into the darkness out of which he had appeared.




XIII

BENITA PLANS ESCAPE

The next morning, while she was cooking breakfast, Benita saw Jacob
Meyer seated upon a rock at a little distance, sullen and disconsolate.
His chin was resting on his hand, and he watched her intently, never
taking his eyes from her face. She felt that he was concentrating his
will upon her; that some new idea concerning her had come into his
mind; for it was one of her miseries that she possessed the power of
interpreting the drift of this man's thoughts. Much as she detested him,
there existed that curious link between them.

It may be remembered that, on the night when they first met at the crest
of Leopard's Kloof, Jacob had called her a "thought-sender," and some
knowledge of their mental intimacy had come home to Benita. From that
day forward her chief desire had been to shut a door between their
natures, to isolate herself from him and him from her. Yet the attempt
was never entirely successful.

Fear and disgust took hold of her, bending there above the fire, all
the while aware of the Jew's dark eyes that searched her through and
through. Benita formed a sudden determination. She would implore her
father to come away with her.

Of course, such an attempt would be terribly dangerous. Of the Matabele
nothing had been seen; but they might be about, and even if enough
cattle could be collected to draw the waggon, it belonged to Meyer as
much as to her father, and must therefore be left for him. Still, there
remained the two horses, which the Molimo had told her were well and
getting fat.

At this moment Meyer rose and began to speak to her.

"What are you thinking of, Miss Clifford?" he asked in his soft foreign
voice.

She started, but answered readily enough:

"Of the wood which is green, and the kid cutlets which are getting
smoked. Are you not tired of kid, Mr. Meyer?" she went on.

He waved the question aside. "You are so good--oh! I mean it--so really
good that you should not tell stories even about small things. The wood
is not green; I cut it myself from a dead tree; and the meat is not
smoked; nor were you thinking of either. You were thinking of me, as I
was thinking of you; but what exactly was in your mind, this time I do
not know, and that is why I ask you to tell me."

"Really, Mr. Meyer," she answered flushing; "my mind is my own
property."

"Ah! do you say so? Now I hold otherwise--that it is my property, as
mine is yours, a gift that Nature has given to each of us."

"I seek no such gift," she answered; but even then, much as she would
have wished to do so, she could not utter a falsehood, and deny this
horrible and secret intimacy.

"I am sorry for that, as I think it very precious; more precious even
than the gold which we cannot find; for Miss Clifford, it brings me
nearer you."

She turned upon him, but he held up his hand, and went on:

"Oh! do not be angry with me, and do not fear that I am going to trouble
you with soft speeches, for I shall not, unless a time should come, as
I think that perhaps it will, when you may wish to listen to them. But I
want to point out something to you, Miss Clifford. Is it not a wonderful
thing that our minds should be so in tune, and is there not an object
in all this? Did I believe as you do, I should say that it was Heaven
working in us--no: do not answer that the working comes from lower down.
I take no credit for reading that upon your lips; the retort is too
easy and obvious. I am content to say, however, that the work is that
of instinct and nature, or, if you will, of fate, pointing out a road by
which together we might travel to great ends."

"I travel my road alone, Mr. Meyer."

"I know, I know, and that is the pity of it. The trouble between man and
woman is that not in one case out of a million, even if they be lovers,
do they understand each other. Their eyes may seek one another, their
hands and lips may meet, and yet they remain distinct, apart, and often
antagonistic. There is no communication of the soul. But when it chances
to be hewn from the same rock as it were--oh! then what happiness may be
theirs, and what opportunities!"

"Possibly, Mr. Meyer; but, to be frank, the question does not interest
me."

"Not yet; but I am sure that one day it will. Meanwhile, I owe you an
apology. I lost my temper before you last night. Well, do not judge me
hardly, for I was utterly worn out, and that old idiot vexed me with his
talk about ghosts, in which I do not believe."

"Then why did it make you so angry? Surely you could have afforded to
treat it with contempt, instead of doing--as you did."

"Upon my word! I don't know, but I suppose most of us are afraid lest we
should be forced to accept that which we refuse. This ancient place gets
upon the nerves, Miss Clifford; yours as well as mine. I can afford
to be open about it, because I know that you know. Think of its
associations: all the crime that has been committed here for ages and
ages, all the suffering that has been endured here. Doubtless human
sacrifices were offered in this cave or outside of it; that great burnt
ring in the rock there may have been where they built the fires. And
then those Portuguese starving to death, slowly starving to death while
thousands of savages watched them die. Have you ever thought what it
means? But of course you have, for like myself you are cursed with
imagination. God in heaven! is it wonderful that it gets upon the
nerves? especially when one cannot find what one is looking for, that
vast treasure"--and his face became ecstatic--"that shall yet be yours
and mine, and make us great and happy."

"But which at present only makes me a scullery-maid and most unhappy,"
replied Benita cheerfully, for she heard her father's footstep. "Don't
talk any more of the treasure, Mr. Meyer, or we shall quarrel. We have
enough of that during business hours, when we are hunting for it, you
know. Give me the dish, will you? This meat is cooked at last."

Still Benita could not be rid of that treasure, since after breakfast
the endless, unprofitable search began again. Once more the cave was
sounded, and other hollow places were discovered upon which the two men
got to work. With infinite labour three of them were broken into in as
many days, and like the first, found to be graves, only this time of
ancients who, perhaps, had died before Christ was born. There they lay
upon their sides, their bones burnt by the hot cement that had been
poured over them, their gold-headed and gold-ferruled rods of office in
their hands, their gold-covered pillows of wood, such as the Egyptians
used, beneath their skulls, gold bracelets upon their arms and ankles,
cakes of gold beneath them which had fallen from the rotted pouches that
once hung about their waists, vases of fine glazed pottery that had
been filled with offerings, or in some cases with gold dust to pay the
expenses of their journey in the other world, standing round them, and
so forth.

In their way these discoveries were rich enough--from one tomb alone
they took over a hundred and thirty ounces of gold--to say nothing of
their surpassing archaeological interest. Still they were not what
they sought: all that gathered wealth of Monomotapa which the fleeing
Portuguese had brought with them and buried in this, their last
stronghold.

Benita ceased to take the slightest interest in the matter; she would
not even be at the pains to go to look at the third skeleton, although
it was that of a man who had been almost a giant, and, to judge from the
amount of bullion which he took to the tomb with him, a person of
great importance in his day. She felt as though she wished never to see
another human bone or ancient bead or bangle; the sight of a street
in Bayswater in a London fog--yes, or a toy-shop window in Westbourne
Grove--would have pleased her a hundred times better than these unique
remains that, had they known of them in those days, would have sent half
the learned societies of Europe crazy with delight. She wished to escape
from Bambatse, its wondrous fortifications, its mysterious cone, its
cave, its dead, and--from Jacob Meyer.

Benita stood upon the top of her prison wall and looked with longing at
the wide, open lands below. She even dared to climb the stairs which
ran up the mighty cone of granite, and seated herself in the cup-like
depression on its crest, whence Jacob Meyer had called to her to come
and share his throne. It was a dizzy place, for the pillar leaning
outwards, its point stood almost clear of the water-scarped rock, so
that beneath her was a sheer drop of about four hundred feet to the
Zambesi bed. At first the great height made her feel faint. Her eyes
swam, and unpleasant tremors crept along her spine, so that she was glad
to sink to the floor, whence she knew she could not fall. By degrees,
however, she recovered her nerve, and was able to study the glorious
view of stream and marshes and hills beyond.

For she had come here with a purpose, to see whether it would not be
possible to escape down the river in a canoe, or in native boats such as
the Makalanga owned and used for fishing, or to cross from bank to bank.
Apparently it was impossible, for although the river beneath and
above them was still enough, about a mile below began a cataract that
stretched as far as she could see, and was bordered on either side by
rocky hills covered with forest, over which, even if they could obtain
porters, a canoe could not be carried. This, indeed, she had already
heard from the Molimo, but knowing his timid nature, she wished to judge
of the matter for herself. It came to this then: if they were to go, it
must be on the horses.

Descending the cone Benita went to find her father, to whom as yet she
had said nothing of her plans. The opportunity was good, for she knew
that he would be alone. As it chanced, on that afternoon Meyer had gone
down the hill in order to try to persuade the Makalanga to give them
ten or twenty men to help them in their excavations. In this, it will
be remembered, he had already failed so far as the Molimo was concerned,
but he was not a man easily turned from his purpose, and he thought that
if he could see Tamas and some of the other captains he might be able
by bribery, threats, or otherwise, to induce them to forget their
superstitious fears, and help in the search. As a matter of fact, he was
utterly unsuccessful, since one and all they declared that for them to
enter that sacred place would mean their deaths, and that the vengeance
of Heaven would fall upon their tribe and destroy it root and branch.

Mr. Clifford, on whom all this heavy labour had begun to tell, was
taking advantage of the absence of his taskmaster, Jacob, to sleep
awhile in the hut which they had now built for themselves beneath the
shadow of the baobab-tree. As she reached it he came out yawning, and
asked her where she had been. Benita told him.

"A giddy place," he said. "I have never ventured to try it myself. What
did you go up there for, dear?"

"To look at the river while Mr. Meyer was away, father; for if he had
seen me do so he would have guessed my reason; indeed, I dare say that
he will guess it now."

"What reason, Benita?"

"To see whether it would not be possible to escape down it in a boat.
But there is no chance. It is all rapids below, with hills and rocks and
trees on either bank."

"What need have you to escape at present?" he asked eyeing her
curiously.

"Every need," she answered with passion. "I hate this place; it is a
prison, and I loathe the very name of treasure. Also," and she paused.

"Also what, dear?"

"Also," and her voice sank to a whisper, as though she feared that he
should overhear her even at the bottom of the hill; "also, I am afraid
of Mr. Meyer."

This confession did not seem to surprise her father, who merely nodded
his head and said:

"Go on."

"Father, I think that he is going mad, and it is not pleasant for us to
be cooped up here alone with a madman, especially when he has begun to
speak to me as he does now."

"You don't mean that he has been impertinent to you," said the old man,
flushing up, "for if so----"

"No, not impertinent--as yet," and she told him what had passed between
Meyer and herself, adding, "You see, father, I detest this man; indeed,
I want to have nothing to do with any man; for me all that is over and
done with," and she gave a dry little sob which appeared to come from
her very heart. "And yet, he seems to be getting some kind of power over
me. He follows me about with his eyes, prying into my mind, and I feel
that he is beginning to be able to read it. I can bear no more. Father,
father, for God's sake, take me away from this hateful hill and its gold
and its dead, and let us get out into the veld again together."

"I should be glad enough, dearest," he answered. "I have had plenty of
this wildgoose chase, which I was so mad as to be led into by the love
of wealth. Indeed, I am beginning to believe that if it goes on much
longer I shall leave my bones here."

"And if such a dreadful thing as that were to happen, what would become
of me, alone with Jacob Meyer?" she asked quietly. "I might even be
driven to the same fate as that poor girl two hundred years ago," and
she pointed to the cone of rock behind her.

"For Heaven's sake, don't talk like that!" he broke in.

"Why not? One must face things, and it would be better than Jacob Meyer;
for who would protect me here?"

Mr. Clifford walked up and down for a few minutes, while his daughter
watched him anxiously.

"I can see no plan," he said, stopping opposite her. "We cannot take the
waggon even if there are enough oxen left to draw it, for it is his
as much as mine, and I am sure that he will never leave this treasure
unless he is driven away."

"And I am sure I hope that he will not. But, father, the horses are our
own; it was his that died, you remember. We can ride away on them."

He stared at her and answered:

"Yes, we could ride away to our deaths. Suppose they got sick or lame;
suppose we meet the Matabele, or could find no game to shoot; suppose
one of us fell ill--oh! and a hundred things. What then?"

"Why, then it is just as well to perish in the wilderness as here, where
our risks are almost as great. We must take our chance, and trust
to God. Perhaps He will be merciful and help us. Listen now, father.
To-morrow is Sunday, when you and I do no work that we can help. Mr.
Meyer is a Jew, and he won't waste Sunday. Well now, I will say that I
want to go down to the outer wall to fetch some clothes which I left
in the waggon, and to take others for the native women to wash, and
of course you will come with me. Perhaps he will be deceived, and stay
behind, especially as he has been there to-day. Then we can get the
horses and guns and ammunition, and anything else that we can carry in
the way of food, and persuade the old Molimo to open the gate for us.
You know, the little side gate that cannot be seen from up here, and
before Mr. Meyer misses us and comes to look, we shall be twenty miles
away, and--horses can't be overtaken by a man on foot."

"He will say that we have deserted him, and that will be true."

"You can leave a letter with the Molimo explaining that it was my fault,
that I was getting ill and thought that I should die, and that you knew
it would not be fair to ask him to come, and so to lose the treasure,
to every halfpenny of which he is welcome when it is found. Oh! father,
don't hesitate any longer; say that you will take me away from Mr.
Meyer."