"
Then Meyer's rage blazed out. 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. But although Meyer laid his hand upon the knife in his belt and
advanced upon him, the old Molimo neither budged an inch nor showed the
slightest fear.
"Let him rave on," he said, when at length Meyer paused exhausted. "Just
so in a time of storm the lightnings flash and the thunder peals, and
the water foams down the face of rock; but then comes the sun again, and
the hill is as it has ever been, only the storm is spent and lost. I
am the rock, he is but the wind, the fire, and the rain. It is not
permitted that he should hurt me, and those spirits in whom he does not
believe treasure up his curses, to let them fall again like stones upon
his head."
Then, with a contemptuous glance at Jacob, the old man turned and glided
back into the darkness out of which he had appeared.
XIII
BENITA PLANS ESCAPE
The next morning, while she was cooking breakfast, Benita saw Jacob
Meyer seated upon a rock at a little distance, sullen and disconsolate.
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