stasy
he began to pour the glittering ingots over his head and body.

"A new version of the tale of Danae," began Robert in a sarcastic
voice, then suddenly paused, for a change had come over Jacob's face, a
terrible change.

It turned ashen beneath the tan, his eyes grew large and round, he put
up his hands as though to thrust something from him, his whole frame
shivered, and his hair seemed to erect itself. Slowly he retreated
backwards, and would have fallen down the unclosed trap-hole had not one
of the Kaffirs pushed him away. Back he went, still back, till he struck
the further wall and stood there, perhaps for half a minute. He lifted
his hand and pointed first to those ancient footprints, some of which
still remained in the dust of the floor, and next, as they thought, at
Benita. His lips moved fast, he seemed to be pleading, remonstrating,
yet--and this was the ghastliest part of it--from them there came no
sound. Lastly, his eyes rolled up until only the whites of them were
visible, his face became wet as though water had been poured over it,
and, still without a sound, he fell forward and moved no more.

So terrible was the scene that with a howl of fear the two Kaffirs
turned and fled up the stairway. Robert sprang to the Jew, dragged
him over on to his back, put his hand upon his breast and lifted his
eyelids.

"Dead," he said. "Stone dead. Privation, brain excitement, heart
failure--that's the story."

"Perhaps," answered Benita faintly; "but really I think that I begin to
believe in ghosts also. Look, I never noticed them before, and I didn't
walk there, but those footsteps seem to lead right up to him." Then she
turned too and fled.

Another week had gone by. The waggons were laden with a burden more
precious perhaps than waggons have often borne before. In one of them,
on a veritable bed of gold, slept Mr. Clifford, still very weak and
ill, but somewhat better than he had been, and with a good prospect
of recovery, at any rate for a while. They were to trek a little after
dawn, and already Robert and Benita were up and waiting. She touched his
arm and said to him:

"Come with me. I have a fancy to see that place once more, for the last
time."

So they climbed the hill and the steep steps in the topmost wall that
Meyer had blocked--re-opened now--and reaching the mouth of the cave,
lit the lamps which they had brought with them, and entered. There were
the fragments of the barricade that Ben