e dust. How stupid you are not to understand! Never mind the hateful
stuff; come on quickly."

So they passed the door which she had opened that morning, and clambered
up the remaining stairway. So full was Benita of terrors that she
could never remember how she climbed them. Suppose that the foot of the
crucifix had swung to; suppose that her father were dead; suppose that
Jacob Meyer had broken into the cave? Well for herself she was no longer
afraid of Jacob Meyer. Oh, they were there! The heavy door _had_ begun
to close, but mercifully her bit of rock kept it ajar.

"Father! Father!" she cried, running towards the tent.

No answer came. She threw aside the flap, held down the lantern and
looked. There he lay, white and still. She was too late!

"He is dead, he is dead!" she wailed. Robert knelt down at her side, and
examined the old man, while she waited in an agony.

"He ought to be," he said slowly; "but, Benita, I don't think he is. I
can feel his heart stir. No, don't stop to talk. Pour out some of that
squareface, and here, mix it with this milk."

She obeyed, and while he held up her father's head, with a trembling
hand emptied a little of the drink into his mouth. At first it ran out
again, then almost automatically he swallowed some, and they knew that
he was alive, and thanked Heaven. Ten minutes later Mr. Clifford was
sitting up staring at them with dull and wondering eyes, while
outside the two Zulus, whose nerves had now utterly broken down, were
contemplating the pile of skeletons in the corner and the white towering
crucifix, and loudly lamenting that they should have been brought to
perish in this place of bones and ghosts.

"Is it Jacob Meyer who makes that noise?" asked Mr. Clifford faintly.
"And, Benita, where have you been so long, and--who is this gentleman
with you? I seem to remember his face."

"He is the white man who was in the waggon, father, an old friend come
to life again. Robert, can't you stop the howling of those Kaffirs?
Though I am sure I don't wonder that they howl; I should have liked
to do so for days. Oh! father, father, don't you understand me? We are
saved, yes, snatched out of hell and the jaws of death."

"Is Jacob Meyer dead, then?" he asked.

"I don't know where he is or what has happened to him, and I don't care,
but perhaps we had better find out. Robert, there is a madman outside.
Make the Kaffirs pull down that wall, would you? and catch him."

"What wall?