"
Benita shuddered; the solemn awfulness of the place and scene oppressed
her. She began to think that she, too, saw those ghosts.
"It is enough," she said. "Let us be going."
So they went, and the pitiful, agonized Christ upon the cross, at which
she glanced from time to time over her shoulder, faded to a white blot,
then vanished away in the darkness, through which, from generation to
generation, it kept its watch above the dead, those dead that in their
despair once had cried to it for mercy, and bedewed its feet with tears.
Glad, oh! glad was she when she had left that haunted place behind her,
and saw the wholesome light again.
"What have you seen?" asked her father and Meyer, in one breath, as they
noted her white and frightened face.
She sank upon a stone seat at the entrance of the cave, and before she
could open her lips the Molimo answered for her:
"The maiden has seen the dead. The Spirit who goes with her has given
greeting to its dead that it left so long ago. The maiden has done
reverence to the White One who hangs upon the cross, and asked a
blessing and a pardon of Him, as she whose Spirit goes with her did
reverence before the eyes of my forefathers, and asked a blessing and a
pardon ere she cast herself away." And he pointed to the little golden
crucifix which hung upon Benita's bosom, attached to the necklace which
Tamas, the messenger, had given her at Rooi Krantz.
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