“He called some of his councillors, and they tried to persuade her to come down from the rock, but she answered, ’No, her betrothed and all her family and friends were dead, and it was her will to follow them.’  Then they asked where was the gold, for having watched day and night they knew it had not been thrown into the river.  She answered that it was where it was, and that, seek as he might, no black man would ever find it.  She added that she gave it into his keeping, and that of his descendants, to safeguard until she came again.  Also she said that if they were faithless to that trust, then it had been revealed to her from heaven above that those same savages who had killed her father and her people, would kill his people also.  When she had spoken thus she stood a while praying on the peak, then suddenly hurled herself into the river, and was seen no more.

“From that day to this the ruin has been held to be haunted, and save the Molimo himself, who retires there to meditate and receive revelations from the spirits, no one is allowed to set a foot in its upper part; indeed, the natives would rather die than do so.  Consequently the gold still remains where it was hidden.  This place itself Tom Jackson did not see, since, notwithstanding his friendship for him, the Molimo refused to allow him to enter there.

“Well, Tom never recovered; he died here, and is buried in the little graveyard behind the house which the Boers made for some of their people.  It was shortly before his death that Mr. Meyer became my partner, for I forgot to say that I had told him the story, and we determined to have a try for that great wealth.  You know the rest.  We trekked to Bambatse, pretending to be traders, and found the old Molimo who knew of me as having been Tom Jackson’s friend.  We asked him if the story he had told to Jackson were true, and he answered that, surely as the sun shone in the heavens, it was true—­every word of it—­for it, and much more than he had spoken of, had been handed down from father to son, and that they even knew the name of the white lady who had killed herself.  It was Ferreira—­your mother’s name, Benita, though a common one enough in South Africa.

“We asked him to allow us to enter the topmost stronghold, which stands upon the hill, but he refused, saying that the curse still lay upon him and his, and that no man should enter until the lady Ferreira came again.  For the rest the place was free to us; we might dig as we would.  So we did dig, and found some gold buried with the ancients, beads and bangles and wire—­about L100 worth.  Also—­that was on the day when the young Seymours came upon us, and accounts for Meyer’s excitement, for he thought that we were on the track of the treasure—­we found a single gold coin, no doubt one that had been dropped by the Portuguese.  Here it is.”  And he threw a thin piece of gold on the table before her.  “I have shown it to a man learned in those matters, and he says that it is a ducat struck by one of the doges of Venice.