ame you--who could?--not Jacob
Meyer. I quite understand that you found it very dull up here, and
ladies must be allowed their fancies. Also you have come back; so why
talk of the matter? But listen: on one point I have made up my mind;
for your own sake you shall not go away any more until we leave this
together. When I had finished carrying up the food I made sure of that.
If you go to look to-morrow morning you will find that no one can come
up that wall--and, what is more, no one can go down it. Moreover, that I
may be quite certain, in future I shall sleep near the stair myself."

Benita and her father stared at each other.

"The Molimo has a right to come," she said; "it is his sanctuary."

"Then he must celebrate his worship down below for a little while. The
old fool pretends to know everything, but he never guessed what I was
going to do. Besides, we don't want him breaking in upon our privacy, do
we? He might see the gold when we find it, and rob us of it afterwards."

XVII

THE FIRST EXPERIMENT

Again Benita and her father stared at each other blankly, almost with
despair. They were trapped, cut off from all help; in the power of a
man who was going mad. Mr. Clifford said nothing. He was old and growing
feeble; for years, although he did not know it, Meyer had dominated
him, and never more so than in this hour of stress and bewilderment.
Moreover, the man had threatened to murder him, and he was afraid, not
so much for himself as for his daughter. If he were to die now, what
would happen to her, left alone with Jacob Meyer? The knowledge of his
own folly, understood too late, filled him with shame. How could he have
been so wicked as to bring a girl upon such a quest in the company of an
unprincipled Jew, of whose past he knew nothing except that it was murky
and dubious? He had committed a great crime, led on by a love of lucre,
and the weight of it pressed upon his tongue and closed his lips; he
knew not what to say.

For a little while Benita was silent also; hope died within her. But
she was a bold-spirited woman, and by degrees her courage re-asserted
itself. Indignation filled her breast and shone through her dark eyes.
Suddenly she turned upon Jacob, who sat before them smoking his pipe and
enjoying their discomfiture.

"How dare you?" she asked in a low, concentrated voice. "How dare you,
you coward?"

He shrank a little beneath her scorn and anger; then seemed to recover
and brace hi