"And did they ever get in?" asked Benita.
"I am sure I don't know, for we went next day, though before we left we called on the Makalanga, who admitted us all readily enough so long as we brought no spades with us. By the way, the gold we saw your father and his friend examining was found in some ancient graves outside the walls, but had nothing to do with the big and mythical treasure."
"What was the place like? I love old ruins," broke in Benita again.
"Oh! wonderful. A gigantic, circular wall built by heaven knows who, then half-way up the hill another wall, and near the top a third wall which, I understood, surrounded a sort of holy of holies, and above everything, on the brink of the precipice, a great cone of granite."
"Artificial or natural?"
"I don't know. They would not let us up there, but we were introduced to their chief and high priest, Church and State in one, and a wonderful old man he was, very wise and very gentle. I remember he told me he believed we should meet again, which seemed an odd thing for him to say. I asked him about the treasure and why he would not let the other white men look for it. He answered that it would never be found by any man, white or black, that only a woman would find it at the appointed time, when it pleased the Spirit of Bambatse, under whose guardianship it was."
"Who was the Spirit of Bambatse, Mr. Seymour?"
"I can't tell you, couldn't make out anything definite about her, except that she was said to be white, and to appear sometimes at sunrise, or in the moonlight, standing upon the tall point of rock of which I told you. I remember that I got up before the dawn to look for her--like an idiot, for of course I saw nothing--and that's all I know about the matter."
"Did you have any talk with my father, Mr. Seymour--alone, I mean?"
"Yes, a little. The next day he walked back to our waggon with us, being glad, I fancy, of a change from the perpetual society of his partner Jacob. That wasn't wonderful in a man who had been brought up at Eton and Oxford, as I found out he had, like myself, and whatever his failings may have been--although we saw no sign of them, for he would not touch a drop of spirits--was a gentleman, which Jacob wasn't. Still, he--Jacob--had read a lot, especially on out-of-the-way subjects, and could talk every language under the sun--a clever and agreeable scoundrel in short."