Benita shook her head. “He was alive a few hours ago, for I could hear him raving and shouting outside the wall we built. But, father, it has all come back to me; I believe that I have found it.”
“What has come back? What have you found? Are you mad, too, like Jacob?”
“What something told me when I was in the trance which afterwards I forgot, but now remember. And I have found the passage which leads to where they hid the gold. It begins behind the crucifix, where no one ever thought of looking.”
This matter of the gold did not seem to interest Mr. Clifford. In his state all the wealth beneath the soil of Africa would not have appealed to him. Moreover, he hated the name of that accursed treasure, which was bringing them to such a miserable end.
“Where does the passage run? Have you looked?” he asked.
“Not yet, but the voice in me said—I mean, I dreamed—that it goes down to the river-side. If you leant on me do you think that you could walk?”
“Not one inch,” he answered. “Here where I am I shall die.”
“No, no, don’t talk like that. We may be saved now that I have found a way. Oh, if only you could—if only you could walk, or if I had the strength to carry you!” and she wrung her hands and began to weep, so weak was she.
Her father looked at her searchingly. Then he said:
“Well, love, I cannot, so there’s an end. But you can, and you had better go.”