your
husband, would not believe me in years past when I told him that we
should meet again."

"Father," she answered, "I thought your rest was that which we find only
in the grave."

"You would not believe," he went on without heeding her, "and therefore
you tried to fly, and therefore your heart was torn with terror and with
agony, when it should have waited for the end in confidence and peace."

"Father, my trial was very sore."

"Maiden, I know it, and because it was so sore that patient Spirit of
Bambatse bore with you, and through it all guided your feet aright. Yes,
with you has that Spirit gone, by day, by night, in the morning and in
the evening. Who was it that smote the man who lies dead yonder with
horror and with madness when he would have bent your will to his and
made you a wife to him? Who was it that told you the secret of the
treasure-pit, and what footsteps went before you down its stair? Who was
it that led you past the sentries of the Amandabele and gave you wit and
power to snatch your lord's life from Maduna's bloody hand? Yes, with
you it has gone and with you it will go. No more shall the White Witch
stand upon the pillar point at the rising of the sun, or in the shining
of the moon."

"Father, I have never understood you, and I do not understand you now,"
said Benita. "What has this spirit to do with me?"

He smiled a little, then answered slowly:

"That I may not tell you; that you shall learn one day, but never here.
When you also have entered into silence, then you shall learn. But I say
to you that this shall not be till your hair is as white as mine, and
your years are as many. Ah! you thought that I had deserted you, when
fearing for your father's life you wept and prayed in the darkness of
the cave. Yet it was not so, for I did but suffer the doom which I had
read to fulfil itself as it must do."

He rose to his feet and, resting on his staff, laid one withered hand
upon the head of Benita.

"Maiden," he said, "we meet no more beneath the sun. Yet because you
have brought deliverance to my people, because you are sweet and pure
and true, take with you the blessing of Munwali, spoken by the mouth of
his servant Mambo, the old Molimo of Bambatse. Though from time to time
you must know tears and walk in the shade of sorrows, long and happy
shall be your days with him whom you have chosen. Children shall spring
up about you, and children's children, and with them also shall the
b