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