it all."

"Then knowing the truth, surely you will let us go," she pleaded, "for I
swear to you that I dare not stay."

"Who am I that I should forbid you?" he asked. "Yet I tell you that you
would do well to stay and save yourselves much terror. Maiden, have
I not said it days and day ago, that here and here only you must
accomplish your fate? Go now if you will, but you shall return again,"
and once more he seemed to begin to doze in the sun.

The two of them consulted hastily together.

"It is no use turning back now," said Benita, who was almost weeping
with doubt and vexation. "I will not be frightened by his vague talk.
What can he know of the future more than any of the rest of us? Besides,
all he says is that we shall come back again, and if that does happen,
at least we shall have been free for a little while. Come, father."

"As you wish," answered Mr. Clifford, who seemed too miserable and
depressed to argue. Only he threw down the letter upon the Molimo's lap,
and begged him to give it to Meyer when he came to look for them.

The old man took no notice; no, not even when Benita bade him farewell
and thanked him for his kindness, praying that all good fortune might
attend him and his tribe, did he answer a single word or even look
up. So they led their horses down the narrow passage where there was
scarcely room for them to pass, and up the steep path beyond. On
the further side of the ancient ditch they remounted them while the
Makalanga watched them from the walls, and cantered away along the same
road by which they had come.

Now this road, or rather track, ran first through the gardens and then
among the countless ruined houses that in bygone ages formed the great
city whereof the mount Bambatse had been the citadel and sanctuary.
The relics of a lost civilization extended for several miles, and were
bounded by a steep and narrow neck or pass in the encircling hills, the
same that Robert Seymour and his brother had found too difficult for
their waggon at the season in which they visited the place some years
before. This pass, or port as it is called in South Africa, had been
strongly fortified, for on either side of it were the ruins of towers.
Moreover, at its crest it was so narrow and steep-sided that a few men
posted there, even if they were armed only with bows and arrows, could
hold an attacking force in check for a considerable time. Beyond it,
after the hill was descended, a bush-clad plain