Their meal that night was a miserable affair, since in the first place provisions were running short and there was little to eat, and in the second no one spoke a word.  Benita could swallow no food; she was weary of that sun-dried trek-ox, for since Meyer had blocked the wall they had little else.  But by good fortune there remained plenty of coffee, and of this she drank two cups, which Jacob prepared and handed to her with much politeness.  It tasted very bitter to her, but this, Benita reflected, was because they lacked milk and sugar.  Supper ended, Meyer rose and bowed to her, muttering that he was going to bed, and a few minutes later Mr. Clifford followed his example.  She went with her father to the hut beneath the tree, and having helped him to remove his coat, which now he seemed to find difficulty in doing for himself, bade him good-night and returned to the fire.

It was very lonely there in the silence, for no sound came from either the Matabele or the Makalanga camps, and the bright moonlight seemed to people the place with fantastic shadows that looked alive.  Benita cried a little now that her father could not see her, and then also sought refuge in bed.  Evidently the end, whatever it might be, was near, and of it she could not bear to think.  Moreover, her eyes were strangely heavy, so much so that before she had finished saying her prayers sleep fell upon her, and she knew no more.

Had she remained as wakeful as it was often her fate to be during those fearful days, towards midnight she might have heard some light-footed creature creeping to her tent, and seen that the moon-rays which flowed through the gaping and ill-closed flap were cut off by the figure of a man with glowing eyes, whose projected arms waved over her mysteriously.  But Benita neither heard nor saw.  In her drugged rest she did not know that her sleep turned gradually to a magic swoon.  She had no knowledge of her rising, or of how she threw her thick cloak about her, lit her lamp, and, in obedience to that beckoning finger, glided from the tent.  She never heard her father stumble from his hut, disturbed by the sound of footsteps, or the words that passed between him and Jacob Meyer, while, lamp in hand, she stood near them like a strengthless ghost.

“If you dare to wake her,” hissed Jacob, “I tell you that she will die, and afterwards you shall die,” and he fingered the pistol at his belt.  “No harm shall come to her—­I swear it!  Follow and see.  Man, man, be silent; our fortunes hang on it.”

Then, overcome also by the strange fierceness of that voice and gaze, he followed.

On they go to the winding neck of the cavern, first Jacob walking backwards like the herald of majesty; then majesty itself in the shape of this long-haired, death-like woman, cloaked and bearing in her hand the light; and last, behind, the old, white-bearded man, like Time following Beauty to the grave.  Now they were in the great cavern, and now, avoiding the open tombs, the well mouth and the altar, they stood beneath the crucifix.