he tell me?"

"Let her guard the secret as she will. O my Guardian, I thank thee. My
burden is departed; my sin of self-murder is atoned."

"Benita da Ferreira, are you gone?"

No answer.

"Benita Clifford, do you hear me?"

"I hear you," said the voice of Benita, speaking in English, although
Jacob, forgetting, had addressed her in Portuguese.

"Where is the gold?"

"In my keeping."

"Tell me, I command you."

But no words came; though he questioned her many times no words came,
till at last her head sank forward upon her knees, and in a faint voice
she murmured:

"Loose me, or I die."

XIX

THE AWAKING

Still Jacob Meyer hesitated. The great secret was unlearned, and, if
this occasion passed, might never be learned. But if he hesitated, Mr.
Clifford did not. The knowledge of his child's danger, the sense that
her life was mysteriously slipping away from her under pressure of the
ghastly spell in which she lay enthralled, stirred him to madness. His
strength and manhood came back to him. He sprang straight at Meyer's
throat, gripped it with one hand, and with the other drew the knife he
wore.

"You devil!" he gasped. "Wake her or you shall go with her!" and he
lifted the knife.

Then Jacob gave in. Shaking off his assailant he stepped to Benita, and
while her father stood behind him with the lifted blade, began to make
strange upward passes over her, and to mutter words of command. For a
long while they took no effect; indeed, both of them were almost sure
that she was gone. Despair gripped her father, and Meyer worked at his
black art so furiously that the sweat burst out upon his forehead and
fell in great drops to the floor.

Oh, at last, at last she stirred! Her head lifted itself a little, her
breast heaved.

"Lord in Heaven, I have saved her!" muttered Jacob in German, and worked
on.

Now the eyes of Benita opened, and now she stood up and sighed. But she
said nothing; only like a person walking in her sleep, she began to move
towards the entrance of the cave, her father going before her with the
lamp. On she went, and out of it straight to her tent, where instantly
she cast herself upon her bed and sank into deep slumber. It was as
though the power of the drug-induced oblivion, which for a while
was over-mastered by that other stronger power invoked by Jacob, had
reasserted itself.

Meyer watched her for awhile; then said to Mr. Clifford:

"Don't be afraid and don't attempt to