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Updated: May 13, 2025
"From that day to this the ruin has been held to be haunted, and save the Molimo himself, who retires there to meditate and receive revelations from the spirits, no one is allowed to set a foot in its upper part; indeed, the natives would rather die than do so. Consequently the gold still remains where it was hidden.
Then the three men placed themselves back to back, in such fashion that they faced every way, and could not be smitten down from behind, and waited. "I do not kill envoys," said the Molimo, "but if they are foul-mouthed, I throw them out of my walls. Your message, men of the Amandabele." "I hear you. Hearken now to the word of Lobengula."
"Benita knows no Portuguese, so how comes she to speak it?" "Because she is no longer our Benita; she is another Benita, Benita da Ferreira. The Molimo was right when he said that the spirit of the dead woman went with her, as it seems the name has gone," he added. "Have done," said Mr. Clifford; "the thing is unholy. Wake her up, or I will." "And bring about her death.
"Do you not see," he added, "that it is my only chance of life? If you go you may be able to bring me help before the end comes. Should there be a passage the probability is that, although they know nothing of it, it finishes somewhere by the wall of the first enclosure where the Makalanga are. If so, you may find the Molimo, or if he is dead, Tamas or one of the others, and they will help us.
The maiden enters first alone with me; it is her house, and should it please her to ask you to dwell therein, so be it. But first she must visit her house alone." "Nonsense," said Mr. Clifford angrily. "I will not have it. It will frighten her." "Lady, do you trust me?" asked the Molimo. "Yes," she answered; adding, "Father, I think you had better let me go alone.
The Molimo seemed to guess the meaning of his words from his face, for he answered: "I think not here. The besiegers won this place and camped in it for many weeks. I could show you were they built their fires and tried to undermine the last wall within which the Portuguese sat about until hunger killed them, for they could not eat their gold. Follow me again."
Well was it that he did so, since when he was about half-way up, awkwardness, or perhaps loss of nerve neither of them wonderful in an old man caused his foot to slip, and had it not been for the rope which Meyer and the Molimo held, he would certainly have fallen into the river some hundreds of feet below. As it was, he recovered himself, and presently arrived panting and very pale.
Her mind kept flying back to all the events of the day: the strange words of that mystic old Molimo, concerning herself; the arrival of the brutal messengers and the indaba that followed; then the sudden and awful destruction of their spokesman at the hand of Jacob Meyer.
He turned upon the Molimo and reviled him in his own tongue, saying that he knew well where the treasure was hidden, and that if he did not point it out he would kill him and send him to his friends, the spirits. So savage and evil did he look that Benita retreated a little way, while Mr. Clifford strove in vain to calm him.
Presently, however, her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, and as they advanced up its length she perceived that save for a skin rug upon which she guessed the Molimo sat at his solitary devotions, and some gourds and platters for water and food, all the front part of the place appeared to be empty.
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