Jacob came out of his thoughts and calculations, and listened gloomily.
"I have half a mind to come with you," he said, words at which Benita
shivered. "It certainly is most cursed lonesome in that cave, and I seem
to hear things in it, as though those old bones were rattling, sounds
like sighs and whispers too, which are made by the draught."
"Well, why don't you?" asked Benita.
It was a bold stroke, but it succeeded. If he had any doubts they
vanished, and he answered at once:
"Because I have not the time. We have to get this business finished one
way or another before the wet season comes on, and we are drowned out of
the place with rain, or rotted by fever. Take your afternoon out, Miss
Clifford; every maid of all work is entitled to as much, and I am afraid
that is your billet here. Only," he added, with that care for her safety
which he always showed in his more temperate moods, "pray be careful,
Clifford, to get back before sundown. That wall is too risky for your
daughter to climb in the dusk. Call me from the foot of it; you have the
whistle, and I will come down to help her up. I think I'll go with you
after all. No, I won't. I made myself so unpleasant to them yesterday
that those Makalanga can't wish to see any more of me at present.
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