against its face.

It was done, and they regarded their work with pride, although it seemed
probable that they were building up their own tomb. Because of its
position at an angle of the passage, they knew that Meyer could not get
to it with a pole to batter it down. Also, there was no loose powder
left, so his only chance would be to pull it to pieces with his hands,
and this, they thought, might be beyond his power. At least, should he
attempt it, they would have ample warning. Yet that day was not to pass
without another trouble.

Just as they had rolled up and levered into place a long fragment of
rock designed to prevent the ends of their supporting pieces of wood
from slipping on the cement floor, Mr. Clifford uttered an exclamation,
then said:

"I have wrung my back badly. Help me to the tent. I must lie down."

Slowly and with great pain they staggered up the cave, Mr. Clifford
leaning on Benita and a stick, till, reaching the tent at last, he
almost fell on to the blankets and remained there practically crippled.

Now began Benita's terrible time, the worst of all her life. Every hour
her father became more ill. Even before they took refuge in the cave
he was completely broken down, and now after this accident he began to
suffer very much. His rheumatism or sciatica, or whatever it was, seemed
to settle upon the hurt muscles of his back, causing him so much pain
that he could scarcely sleep for ten minutes at a stretch. Moreover, he
would swallow but little of the rough food which was all Benita was
able to prepare for him; nothing, indeed, except biscuit soaked in black
coffee, which she boiled over a small fire made of wood that they had
brought with them, and occasionally a little broth, tasteless stuff
enough, for it was only the essence of biltong, or sun-dried flesh,
flavoured with some salt.

Then there were two other terrors against she must fight, the darkness
and the dread of Jacob Meyer. Perhaps the darkness was the worse of
them. To live in that hideous gloom in which their single lamp, for she
dared burn no more lest the oil should give out, seemed but as one star
to the whole night, ah! who that had not endured it could know what it
meant? There the sick man, yonder the grinning skeletons, around the
blackness and the silence, and beyond these again a miserable death,
or Jacob Meyer. But of him Benita saw nothing, though once or twice she
thought that she heard his voice raving outside the