Quite near to the door one of these bags had slipped down
and burst open. It was filled with gold, some in ingots and some in raw
nuggets, for there they lay in a shining, scattered heap. As she stooped
to look it came into the mind of Benita that her father had said that in
her trance she had told them that one of the bags of treasure was burst,
and that the skin of which it had been made was black and red. Behold!
before her lay the burst bag, and the colour of the hide was black and
red.
She shivered. The thing was uncanny, terrible. Uncanny was it also
to see in the thick dust, which in the course of twenty or more of
centuries had gathered on the floor, the mark of footprints, those of
the last persons who had visited this place. There had been two of them,
a man and a woman, and they were no savages, for they wore shoes. Benita
placed her foot in the print left by that dead woman. It filled it
exactly, it might have been her own. Perhaps, she thought to herself,
that other Benita had descended here with her father, after the
Portuguese had hidden away their wealth, that she might be shown where
it was, and of what it consisted.
One more glance at all this priceless, misery-working gold, and on she
went, she who was seeking the gold of life and liberty for herself and
him who lay above.
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