Benita, An African Romance | Page 7

the Makalanga, who lived in the fortress, which was called Bambatse, would not allow them to dig, because they said the place was haunted, and if they did so it would bring bad luck to their tribe."
"And did they ever get in?" asked Benita.
"I am sure I don't know, for we went next day, though before we left we called on the Makalanga, who admitted us all readily enough so long as we brought no spades with us. By the way, the gold we saw your father and his friend examining was found in some ancient graves outside the walls, but had nothing to do with the big and mythical treasure."
"What was the place like? I love old ruins," broke in Benita again.
"Oh! wonderful. A gigantic, circular wall built by heaven knows who, then half-way up the hill another wall, and near the top a third wall which, I understood, surrounded a sort of holy of holies, and above everything, on the brink of the precipice, a great cone of granite."
"Artificial or natural?"
"I don't know. They would not let us up there, but we were introduced to their chief and high priest, Church and State in one, and a wonderful old man he was, very wise and very gentle. I remember he told me he believed we should meet again, which seemed an odd thing for him to say. I asked him about the treasure and why he would not let the other white men look for it. He answered that it would never be found by any man, white or black, that only a woman would find it at the appointed time, when it pleased the Spirit of Bambatse, under whose guardianship it was."
"Who was the Spirit of Bambatse, Mr. Seymour?"
"I can't tell you, couldn't make out anything definite about her, except that she was said to be white, and to appear sometimes at sunrise, or in the moonlight, standing upon the tall point of rock of which I told you. I remember that I got up before the dawn to look for her--like an idiot, for of course I saw nothing--and that's all I know about the matter."
"Did you have any talk with my father, Mr. Seymour--alone, I mean?"
"Yes, a little. The next day he walked back to our waggon with us, being glad, I fancy, of a change from the perpetual society of his partner Jacob. That wasn't wonderful in a man who had been brought up at Eton and Oxford, as I found out he had, like myself, and whatever his failings may have been--although we saw no sign of them, for he would not touch a drop of spirits--was a gentleman, which Jacob wasn't. Still, he--Jacob--had read a lot, especially on out-of-the-way subjects, and could talk every language under the sun--a clever and agreeable scoundrel in short."
"Did my father say anything about himself?"
"Yes; he told me that he had been an unsuccessful man all his life, and had much to reproach himself with, for we got quite confidential at last. He added that he had a family in England--what family he didn't say--whom he was anxious to make wealthy by way of reparation for past misdeeds, and that was why he was treasure-hunting. However, from what you tell me, I fear he never found anything."
"No, Mr. Seymour, he never found it and never will, but all the same I am glad to hear that he was thinking of us. Also I should like to explore that place, Bambatse."
"So should I, Miss Clifford, in your company, and your father's, but not in that of Jacob. If ever you should go there with him, I say:-- 'Beware of Jacob.'"
"Oh! I am not afraid of Jacob," she answered with a laugh, "although I believe that my father still has something to do with him--at least in one of his letters he mentioned his partner, who was a German."
"A German! I think that he must have meant a German Jew."
After this there was silence between them for a time, then he said suddenly, "You have told me your story, would you like to hear mine?"
"Yes," she answered.
"Well, it won't take you long to listen to it, for, Miss Clifford, like Canning's needy knife-grinder, I have really none to tell. You see before you one of the most useless persons in the world, an undistinguished member of what is called in England the 'leisured class,' who can do absolutely nothing that is worth doing, except shoot straight."
"Indeed," said Benita.
"You do not seem impressed with that accomplishment," he went on, "yet it is an honest fact that for the last fifteen years--I was thirty-two this month--practically my whole time has been given up to it, with a little fishing thrown in in the spring. As I want to make the most