“Benita da Ferreira, are you gone?”
No answer.
“Benita Clifford, do you hear me?”
“I hear you,” said the voice of Benita, speaking in English, although Jacob, forgetting, had addressed her in Portuguese.
“Where is the gold?”
“In my keeping.”
“Tell me, I command you.”
But no words came; though he questioned her many times no words came, till at last her head sank forward upon her knees, and in a faint voice she murmured:
“Loose me, or I die.”