Benita, An African Romance | Page 7

was on him.
"Then he thought better of it, and dropped his gun, and we explained
that we were merely on an archæological expedition. The end of it was
that we became capital friends, though neither of us could cotton much
to Mr. Jacob--I forget his other name. He struck me as too handy with
his rifle, and was, I gathered, an individual with a mysterious and rather
lurid past. To cut a long story short, when he found out that we had no
intention of poaching, your father, for it was he, told us frankly that
they were treasure-hunting, having got hold of some story about a vast
store of gold which had been hidden away there by Portuguese two or
three centuries before. Their trouble was, however, that 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