The Sign of the Spider

For months they journeyed on thus, peril their companion at every step, the more so as they gained the more inhabited tracts. Once they fell in with a petty Arab chief and his following. This man was known to Laurence, and treated them well and hospitably while they remained at his camp. But before they departed he said:

"What sum will purchase this girl, my friend, for by now thou must have had enough of her? She would fetch large money at Khartoum, whither I can forward her, and I will deal with thee fairly. Yes, Allah is great. I will only make my profit on her. The price shall be liberal."

Then Laurence Stanninghame, the renegade, the man who had thrown all considerations of duty and feeling to the winds as so much lumber, so much meaningless conventionality, felt as shocked and disgusted as ever he could have done in his most foolish days, what time illusions were as vivid, as golden as ever. But, remembering himself, he replied in an even tone:

"No sum will purchase her, Rahman ben Zuhdi. Were I dying at this moment, and large wealth could bring me fifty years more of life, I would not sell her. All that the world contains could not purchase her, for she has restored me to life at the peril of her own, again and again, – nay, more, has restored me to that which alone renders life a possession of any value. I have dealt in slaves, but this is a daughter of a race of kings.

"The People of the Spider," said the Arab thoughtfully, flashing a curious glance at Lindela, who stood some little way apart. "They grow their women fine if they are all as this one. Well, I did but make thee the offer, my brother; but if a man values anything above gold, all the gold in the world will not induce him to part therewith. Fare thee well. We part friends."

"As friends indeed do we part, O Rahman," replied Laurence. And they resumed their respective ways.

As time went on, Lindela's manner seemed to undergo a change – her spirits to flag. Was it the fearful malarial heat of the low-lying forest country, often swampy, which was affecting her? thought Laurence with concern. He himself was inured to it, but this daughter of a healthy upland race, accustomed to the breezy, equable climate of her mountain home – on her the steaming heat of the rotting vegetation and marshy soil might conceivably be beginning to tell.

They were resting one day during the noontide heat. No burning rays from the outside sun could scorch here, for the place was dim with thick foliage and creepers trailing from the limbs of great forest trees. Both had fallen asleep.

Suddenly Lindela started up. A sharp wringing pain, seeming to begin on the left shoulder, went through her frame. It spread – down her arm – then through to the other shoulder – down the other arm. What was it? A cramp caught from the treacherous chill of the humid soil? Perhaps. Well, it would soon pass. Then Laurence began to stir in his sleep. The sight made her forget her pain. He must not awaken; he needed rest. Noiselessly plucking a leafy branch she went over to him and began softly to fan him. This was effective. His even, regular breathing told that he slumbered peacefully, restfully, once more.

Soon she became aware that her powers were failing her. Her arm seemed to become cramped, paralyzed, and a mist floated before her eyes. What did it mean? Her lips opened to call aloud – then closed, uttering no sound. Why should he be disturbed because she was suffering a little pain? thought this savage – this daughter of a race of savage kings.

But the mist deepened before her failing vision. She swayed where she sat, then fell heavily forward – upon him – the branch wherewith she had been fanning him striking him sharply across the face.

Laurence sprang to his feet, unconsciously throwing her from him. His first impression was that he had been surprised in his sleep by an enemy.

"Lindela! What is it?" he cried, raising her up and supporting her. And then his dark face turned a livid ashen white – for with the dull stupor which lay heavy in the usually bright eyes, his own had rested upon something else. The shapely shoulder was swollen to an abnormal size, and at the back of it were two small round punctures.

"She has been bitten. A snake, of course," he muttered. "And it is too late."

"Yes, it is too late, Nyonyoba," she murmured. "Yet I do not think I have been bitten – not by a snake, or I should have known it."

"But you have been. When was this? Why did you not awaken me?" And his voice startled even himself, so fierce was it in its grief.

"Why should I awaken you, beloved, you who needed rest?" she murmured, groping for his hand. "Yes, it is too late. It was some time ago. I thought it was a cramp, but I must have been bitten."

Laurence was thinking – and thinking hard. What remedy was there? None. It was even as she had said – too late. The poison had penetrated her whole system.

"I am dying, beloved – and shall soon go into the Dark Unknown – " she murmured, more drowsily than before. "Yet it matters nothing, for those of our nation do not fear death. And listen. I heard the Arab's proposal to you, and your answer thereto – yet, when you returned to your people, what would have become of me?"

She was but voicing his own thoughts of many and many a time before. Yet now Laurence felt almost startled. Was it the clear intuition which rightly or wrongly is believed to accompany the hour of dissolution? Then he remembered she could have learned much about civilized peoples through the talk of Tyisandhlu and her father.

"I die, beloved, but I welcome death," she went on, – "for I have lived – ah, yes, I have lived. I feel no pain now, and I die in your arms. Surely my itongo7 will not weep mournfully on the voices of the night as others do; surely it will laugh for very joy, for very love, because of this my end, until time shall die – will it not, Nyonyoba, my beloved? Say – will it not?"

But Laurence could not say anything, for, lo – a marvel. This man, deadened for long years to feeling or ruth; this coldly pitiless trafficker in the sufferings of human beings; in whose cynical creed now such a love as that of this savage girl held no place – felt now as though a hand were gripping him by the throat, choking all power of reply. And the call of birds, high among the tree-tops, alone broke the silence, in the semi-gloom of the forest aisles.

Lindela's voice had sunk until it was well-nigh inaudible, and Laurence was constrained to bend his head to hers in order to catch her every word. Then – a flash of gladness seemed momentarily to light up the drowsy eyes, and she spoke no more. Her eyelids closed, her breathing grew fainter and fainter, and soon Laurence knew that that which lay heavy within his arms was no longer a living woman. Lindela had passed.

For long he sat thus. Then a faint rustling sound in the dry wood of an immense fallen tree-trunk caught his ear. Ha! – the snake which had been the cause of her death! It, at any rate, should die. Gently he laid her down, then snatching up a stick which had been used to carry one of the loads he advanced towards the sound.

Something was struggling among the dry bark; with the stick he broke this away. There fell out an enormous spider.

He started back in horror and loathing. The hairy monster brought back too gruesome a reminiscence. Then he noticed that it looked as if it had received injury through crushing, two or three of the hideous tentacles being partially or wholly broken off.

Then, as he gazed with loathing upon the sprawling thing, it seemed that the missing link was supplied. Lindela, in her sleep, must have moved over on to this horror, though not heavily enough to crush it. It had buried its venomous nippers in her shoulder, prior to crawling away to die.

A shiver ran through his frame as he beat to death the great noisome insect – and his blood seemed to chill with a superstitious fear. It seemed too strange, too marvellous to be a mere coincidence. Lindela had defied the traditions of her race, and now she had met her death through the agency of the very embodiment of those traditions. She, a daughter of the Kings of the People of the Spider, had met her death through the Spider's bite. It was horrifying in its sinister appropriateness. Was it really a thing of witchcraft? Did the Fiend have actual bodily power here, in "the dark places of the earth"? Had this demoniacal influence followed her to wreak its vengeance here, at such a distance from the home and country to which she would return no more?

When Laurence Stanninghame resumed his journey the next day he left behind him a grave – a deep, secure grave – a solitary grave in the heart of the untrodden forest. His journeyings henceforth must be alone; but ofttimes his thoughts would go back to that nameless grave, and to her who rested forever therein. Only a savage! Only a heathen! Yes – but if brave, devoted, self-sacrificing love is of any account at all in the scheme of Christian virtues, where would this savage, this heathen, come in at the day of awards? Where indeed, among the multitude of gold-worshipping, form-adoring Pharisees? Truth to tell, Laurence believed but dimly in the day of awards. Yet did it exist, he thought he knew the answer to his own question.

CHAPTER XXX.

"GOOD-BYE – MY IDEAL!"

Johannesburg once more. The great, restless gold-town had passed through many changes, many booms and rumours of booms – the latter for the most part – since that quiet trek now four years ago. Many of those who then were among its busiest inhabitants had departed, some to a land whence there is no return, others to the land of their respective births. Many, who then had been on the verge of millionaires, "buzzing" their rapidly acquired gains with a lavish magnificence which they imagined to be "princely" – were now uncertificated bankrupts, or had blown their brains out, or had come within the meshes of the law and the walls of a convict prison; while others, who at that time lived upon hope and the "whiff of an oiled rag," now fared sumptuously every day, and would do so unto their lives' end. But for those who had held on to the place through good and evil report, since the time we last pioneered our reader through its dust-swept streets and arid surroundings, something of a surprise was in store. For the old order of things was reversed. Instead of Hazon returning without his travelling companions, the latter had returned without Hazon.

"Bless my soul, Stanninghame, is that you?" cried Rankin, running right into Laurence one morning just outside the new Exchange. "And Holmes too? Why, you're looking uncommonly well, both of you. What have you done with the pirate, eh?"

"Oh, he's coming on!" replied Laurence, which in substance was correct, though it might be weeks before he came on; for, as a matter of fact, Hazon had remained behind at a certain point to collect and reduce to cash such gains as were being custodied for him – and the joint undertaking – by sundry of his blood-brethren the Arab chiefs.

"Coming on, is he? Well, well! I think we've been libelling the pirate after all, eh Rainsford?" as that worthy just joined them. "Here's Hazon's trek come back without Hazon, instead of the other way about."

Laurence thought how nearly it had been a case of the other way about. Had he not offered himself instead of Holmes, it would have been, for he would have remained with the Ba-gcatya, and Hazon would have returned alone. Of the fate of Holmes – well – he knew what that would have been. Holmes, however, did not, for the simple reason that Laurence had refrained from communicating a word relating to that horrible episode to either of his associates – when, shortly after parting with Rahman ben Zuhdi, and the death of Lindela, he had found the two, safe and well, at the principal town of a prominent Arab chief. And Holmes, possibly through ignorance of its nature or magnitude, never did fully appreciate the sacrifice which the other had made for him.

"What do you think?" went on Rankin, when the requisite amount of greeting and chaff had been exchanged, "this fellow Rainsford has gone and got married; has started out in the nursery department for all he's worth."

Laurence laughed.

"Why, Rainsford, you were as stony broke as the rest of us when I left. Things looking up, eh?"

"Of course. I told you it was a case of 'down to-day, up to-morrow' – told you at the time. And it's my belief you'd have done better to have remained here." Then lowering his voice; "Where's the pirate?"

"Coming on."

Rainsford whistled, and looked knowing.

"What do you say?" cut in Rankin, "a drop of gin and soda wouldn't hurt us, eh?" Then while they moved round to the Exchange bar, he went on; "I've got a thing that would suit you to a hair, Stanninghame. I'd take it up myself if I could, but I'm only an agent in the matter."

"Shares, eh?"

"Yes – Skinner and Sacks."

"Dead off. See here, Rankin – you must off-load them on somebody else. If I were next door to certain of making half a million out of it, even then I wouldn't touch any sort of investment connected with this place. No, not to save my immortal soul – if I've got one, which at times seems doubtful." And there was something in Laurence's laugh – evoked by old time recollections – which convinced the other that no business was to be done in this quarter at any rate.

There was method in the way in which Laurence had sought to dawdle away the morning. He had arrived late the night before, and as yet had made no inquiries. How strange it all seemed! Surely it was but yesterday that he was here last. Surely he had slept, and had dreamed the portentous events which had intervened. They could not have been real. But the stones – the great diamonds – they were real enough; the metal box too – the "Sign of the Spider."

How was he thus transformed? Later in the day, as he stood on the stoep knocking at the door of Mrs. Falkner's house, he was conscious that his heart hardly beat quicker, that his pulses were as firm and even as ever. Four years of a hard, stern schooling had done it.

Yes, Mrs. Falkner was at home. He was ushered into the drawing room, which was empty. There was the same ever-clinging scent of roses, the same knick-knacks, the same lounge on which they had sat together that night. Even the battery stamps across the kloof seemed to hammer out the same refrain.

The door opened. Was it Lilith herself? No, only Lilith's aunt.

"Why, Mr. Stanninghame, I am glad to see you. But – how you have changed!"

"Well, yes, Mrs. Falkner. Time has knocked me about some. I can't say the same as regards yourself, though. You haven't changed an atom."

She laughed. "That can't be true. I'm sure I feel more and more of an old woman every day. But sit down, do, and tell me about your adventures. Have you had a successful trip?"

"Pretty well. It has proved a more paying concern, at any rate, than the exhilarating occupation known as 'waiting for the boom.'"

"I am very glad to hear that. And your friends – have you all returned safe and sound?"

Laurence replied that they had. But for all his outward equability, his impatience was amounting to torment. Even while he talked his ears were strained to catch the sound of a light step without. How would Lilith look? he wondered. Would these four years have left their mark upon her?

"And how is your niece, Miss Ormskirk?" he went on.

"Lilith? Oh, but – by the way, she is not 'Miss Ormskirk' now. She is married."

"Oh, is she? I hadn't heard. After all, one forgets how time slips by."

That was all. It was a shock – possibly a hard one; but of late Laurence Stanninghame had been undergoing a steady training for meeting such. Mrs. Falkner – who had made the communication not without some qualm, for she had been put very much up to the former state of things, both by her nephew, George, and certain "signs of the times," not altogether to be dissimulated, however bravely Lilith had borne herself after that parting now so far back – felt relieved and in a measure a trifle disappointed, for, womanlike, she dearly loved romance. But the man before her had not turned a hair, had not even changed colour at the intelligence. It could not really matter, she decided – which was as well for him, but for herself disappointing.

"Yes – she married her cousin George, my nephew. You remember him," she went on. "I was against it for a long time; but, after all, I believe it was the saving of him, poor fellow, he was so wildly in love with her. He was simply going to the dogs. Yes, it was the saving of him."

"That's satisfactory, anyway," said Laurence, as though he were discussing the fortunes of any two people whose names he had just heard for the first time. But meanwhile his mind was inwardly avenging itself upon its outward self-control. For vividly, and as though spoken into his ears, there seemed to float fragments of those farewell words uttered there in that room: "You have drawn my very heart and soul into yours… Oh, it is too bitter! Laurence, my darling – my love, my life, my ideal, good-bye – and good-bye!"

Well, the foolish dream had been a pleasant one while it lasted. Nay, more, – in all seriousness it had borne momentous fruit, – for no less than three times had that episode – yes, now it seemed a mere episode – intervened between him and death.

"Lilith will be so glad to see you when you are passing through; for of course you will be returning home again. They have taken a bungalow at Kalk Bay for the summer. I'll find you the address."

They talked on a little longer, and then Laurence took his departure.

As he gained the outer air once more there was that about the shimmer of the sunlight, the hum of the battery stamp, the familiarity of the surroundings, which reminded him of that former time when he had thus stepped forth, having bidden a good-bye which was not a good-bye. Yet the same pain did not grip around his heart now – not in its former acuteness – rather was it now a sense of the falling away of all things. By a freak of psychology his mind reverted to poor Lindela, dying in his arms in the steamy gloom of the equatorial forest: dying slowly, by inches, in pain; yet uttering no cry, no complaint, lest she should rob him of a few minutes more or less of sleep. That was indeed love. Still, even while making it, his sense of philosophy told him the comparison was not a fair one.

Well, that was over – another chapter in his life to shut down. Now to make the best of life. Now, with the means to taste its pleasures, with hard, firm health to enjoy them; after all, what was a mere sentimental grievance? Perhaps it counted for something, for all he told himself to the contrary. Perhaps deep down there gnawed a restless craving, stifle it as he would. Who can tell?

"The R. M. S. Alnwick Castle leaves for England at 4 P. M."

Such was the notice which, posted up in shipping office, or in the short paragraph column of the Cape Town newspapers, met the public eye.

It was the middle of the morning. Laurence Stanninghame, striving to kill the few hours remaining to him on African soil, was strolling listlessly along Adderley Street. A shop window, adorned with photographic views of local scenery and types of natives, – mostly store-boys rigged up with shield and assegai to look warlike for the occasion, – attracted his attention, and for a while he stood, idly gazing at these. His survey ended, he backed away from the window in a perfectly irrational and British manner on a busy thoroughfare, and – trod hard on somebody's toes. A little cry of mingled pain and resentment, then he stood – profusely apologizing.

But with the first tones of his voice, she whom he had so awkwardly, if unintentionally damaged, seemed to lose sight of her injuries. Her face blanched, but not with physical pain, her lips parted in a sort of gasp, and the sweet eyes, wide and dilated, sought his in wonder – almost in fear.

"Laurence!"

The name was hardly audible, but he heard it. And if his steely philosophy had stood him in good stead before, assuredly at this moment his guard was down; as he recognized that he had last beheld this serene vision of loveliness, arrayed as now in cool white, strained to him in farewell embrace alone in the solemn night, those parted lips pressed to his in heart-wrung pain, those sweet eyes, starry, humid with love, gazing full into his own. And now they met again, four years later – by chance – in a busy thoroughfare.

"Pray excuse my inexcusable awkwardness; I must have hurt you," he said, as they clasped hands, and the tone was even almost formal, for he remembered they were in public.

"You – you – have changed. I should hardly have known you but for your voice," she said unsteadily – for he had turned to walk up the street with her. "But – when did you return? I – had not heard."

"Had you not? I called on your aunt in Johannesburg on the way through. She was telling me all about you."

Something of relief seemed to manifest itself in Lilith's tone as she rejoined:

"But you – are you staying here?"

"Well, no. I have been trying to kill time until this afternoon. I am leaving by the Alnwick Castle."

"Oh! By the Alnwick Castle?" she repeated again – and in the catch in her voice, and the quickness of utterance, he knew she was talking at random, for the sake of saying something, in fact.

"Do you care to hear a little of what has befallen me since I went?" he said. "Then let us turn in here," as she made a mute but eager gesture of assent.

They had gained the entrance to the oak avenue at the back of Government House. Strolling up this, they turned into the beautiful Botanical Gardens. Nobody was about, save a gardener or two busied with their work.

"What I am going to tell you is so marvellous that you will probably refuse to believe it," he said, after narrating the incident of the sign upon the metal box which had arrested the uplifted weapons of the unsparing Ba-gcatya, and, of course, editing out all that might have revealed the real nature of the expedition. "I have never breathed one word of it to any living being – not even to those who were with me. I would rather you did not either, Lilith, because it is too strange for anybody to believe, and – for other reasons."

She gave the required promise, and he drew forth the box. At sight of this relic of the past, that sweet, entrancing, if profitless past – Lilith could no longer quite keep herself in hand. The tears welled forth, falling upon the metal box itself – hallowing, as it were, the sweet charm of its saving power.

"Your love had power to save one life, you see," he went on in a cold, even voice, intended to strengthen him against himself. "But look, now – see those marks on the lid, just discernible? Now – listen."

And Lilith did listen; and at the description of the awful rock prison, with its skeleton bones, the long hours of helpless suspense and despair – and the final struggle in the ghastly moonlight; the struggle for life with the appalling monster that tenanted it, her eyes dilated with horror, and with pallid face and gasping lips she begged him not to go on, so great a hold did the incident take upon her imagination, even there, in the blaze of the broad midday sunlight.

"I have done now," he said. "Well, Lilith – you see what that token of your love has rescued me from. It was given as an amulet or charm, and right well has it fulfilled its purpose. But – to what end?"

"Did you – did you come back with what you went for," she broke forth at last, as with an effort.

"Yes. Therein, too, you proved yourself a true prophet. And now tell me something about yourself."

"Were you – angry with me when you heard what I had done, Laurence?" she said, raising her eyes full to his.

"Angry? No. Why should I be? Your life is your own, though, as a rule, sacrificing ones' self to save somebody else, as your aunt rather gave me to understand was the case here, is lamentably apt to turn out a case of throwing away one's life with both hands. It is too much like cutting one's own throat to save somebody else from being hanged."

"And is that your way of wishing me well, Laurence?" she said reproachfully.

"No. I wish you nothing but well. It would be futile to say 'happiness,' I suppose."

"The happiness of doing one's duty is a hard kind of happiness, after all," she said, with a sad little smile.