"Shall we stop or go on?" he asked.

"I do not care," she answered. "Only if I stop I think it will be for
ever. Let us go on."

Now the rain had ceased, but the mist was as dense as before. Also
they seemed to have got among bush, for wet leaves brushed their faces.
Utterly exhausted they stumbled forward, till suddenly Benita felt her
horse stop as though a hand had seized its bridle, and heard a man's
voice, speaking with a foreign accent, say:

"Mein Gott! Where are you going?"

"I wish I knew," she answered, like one in a dream.

At this instant the moon rose above the mists, and Benita saw Jacob
Meyer for the first time.

In that light his appearance was not unpleasing. A man of about forty
years of age, not over tall, slight and active in build, with a pointed
black beard, regular, Semitic features, a complexion of an ivory pallor
which even the African sun did not seem to tan, and dark, lustrous eyes
that appeared, now to sleep, and now to catch the fire of the thoughts
within. Yet, weary though she was, there was something in the man's
personality which repelled and alarmed Benita, something wild and cruel.
She felt that he was filled with unsatisfied ambitions and desires, and
that to attain to them he would shrink at nothing. In a moment he was
speaking again in tones that compelled her attention.