The Molimo lifted the lamp from the altar, and having adjusted its
wick, held it up in front of the rood before which, although she was no
Catholic, Benita bowed her head and crossed herself, while he watched
her curiously. Then he lowered it, and she perceived that on the
cemented floor lay great numbers of shrouded forms that at first looked
to her like folk asleep. He stepped to one of them and touched it with
his foot, whereon the cloth which with it was covered crumbled into
dust, revealing beneath a white skeleton.
All those sleepers rested well indeed, for they had been dead at least
two hundred years. There they lay--men, women, and children, though of
the last but few. Some of them had ornaments on their bones, some were
clad in armour, and by all the men were swords, or spears, or knives,
and here and there what she took to be primitive fire-arms. Certain
of them also had turned into mummies in that dry air--grotesque and
dreadful objects from which she gladly averted her eyes.
The Molimo led her forward to the foot of the crucifix, where, upon
its lowest step and upon the cemented floor immediately beneath it
respectively, lay two shapes decorously covered with shawls of some
heavy material interwoven with gold wire, for the manufacture of which
the Makalanga were famous when first the Portuguese came into contact
with them.
Pages:
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148