THE 
 SIGN or* 
 
 "THE 
 
 SPIDER 
 
THE 
 
 SIGN OF THE SPIDER 
 
 BY 
 
 BERTRAM MITFORD 
 
 AUTHOR OF "A VELDT OFFICIAL," " 'TWIXT 
 SNOW AND FIRE" 
 
 DODD MEAD AND COMPANY 
 1897 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1896, 
 
 BY 
 DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER " PACK 
 
 I. " SWEET HOME," i 
 
 II. ADAM'S FIRST WIFE, u 
 
 III. " BEWARE SUCH UNHOLY SPELLS," . . .26 
 
 IV. THE LAND OF PROMISE, .... 41 
 V. KING SCRIP, 54 
 
 VI. " PIRATE " HAZON, 67 
 
 VII. "THE WHOLE SOUL PRISONER ..." . .82 
 
 VIII. DARK DAYS, 94 
 
 IX. His GUARDIAN ANGEL, 106 
 
 X. PREPARATION, 120 
 
 XI. " AT THE TWELFTH HOUR," . . . .130 
 
 XII. "THE DARK PLACES OF THE EARTH," . . 145 
 
 XIII. THE MAN HUNTER, . . . . . .155 
 
 XIV. A DREAM, 163 
 
 XV. AN AWAKENING, . . . . . . .174 
 
 XVI. AN ANGEL UNAWARES 184 
 
 XVII. DISSENSIONS, 195 
 
 XVIII. Two PERILS, 205 
 
 XIX. THE SIGN, 215 
 
 XX. TOW HATEND! 
 
iv CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXI. " THE STRONG WIND THAT BURNS FROM THE 
 
 NORTH," 235 
 
 XXII. THE SHADOW OF THE MYSTERY, . . . 246 
 
 XXIII. LlNDELA, 257 
 
 XXIV. As FROM THE DEAD, 268 
 
 XXV. His LIFE FOR His FRIEND 279 
 
 XXVI. THE PLACE OF THE HORROR, . . . 290 
 
 XXVII. THE HORROR, 301 
 
 XXVIII. " ONLY A SAVAGE ! " 313 
 
 XXIX. " A DEEP A SOLITARY GRAVE," . . .324 
 
 XXX. " GOOD-BYE, MY IDEAL !" .... 334 
 
 XXXI. CONCLUSION, 348 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 CHAPTER L,^v j V. 
 
 " SWEET HOME! '* ' /. ; J ; f, ' 
 
 SHE was talking a him. 
 
 This was a thing she frequently did, and she had 
 two ways of doing it. One was to talk at him through 
 a third party when they two were not alone together; 
 the other to convey moralizings and innuendo for his 
 edification when they were as in the present case. 
 
 Just now she was extolling the superabundant 
 virtues of somebody else's husband, with a tone and 
 meaning which were intended to convey to Laurence 
 Stanninghame that she wished to Heaven one- 
 twentieth part of them was vested in hers. 
 
 He was accustomed to being thus talked at. He 
 ought to be, seeing he had known about thirteen years 
 of it, on and off. But he did not like it any the better 
 from force of habit. We doubt if anybody ever does. 
 However, he had long ceased to take any notice, in 
 the way of retort, no matter how acrid the tone, how 
 biting the innuendo. Now, pushing back his chair 
 from the breakfast-table, he got up, and, turning to 
 the mantelpiece, proceeded to fill a pipe. His spouse, 
 exasperated by his silence, continued to talk at his 
 back. 
 
, * THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 The sickly rays of the autumn sun struggled feebly 
 through the murk of the suburban atmosphere, creep- 
 ing half-ashamedly over the well-worn carpet, then 
 up to the dingy wall-paper, whose dinginess had this 
 redeeming point, that it toned down what otherwise 
 would have been staring, crude, hideous. The furni- 
 ture was battered and worn, and there was an atmos- 
 {jl\eFe of \(JuJtJfl|s,- thick-laid, grimy, which seemed 
 jnseparable^frorri 'fhe^ place. In the street a piano- 
 fcii^atos^e.ngfiteetfefl'.by/a brace of sham Italians, was 
 rapping out the latest music-hall abomination. Lau- 
 rence Stanninghame turned again to his wife, who was 
 still seated at the table. 
 
 " Continue," he said. " It is a great art knowing 
 when to make the most of one's opportunities, which, 
 for present purposes, may be taken to mean that 
 you had better let off all the steam you can, for you 
 have only two days more to do it in only two whole 
 days." 
 
 " Going away again? " (staccato). 
 
 Laurence nodded, and emitted a cloud or two of 
 smoke. 
 
 There rumbled forth a cannonade of words, which 
 did not precisely express approval. Then, staccato: 
 
 " Where are you going to this time? " 
 
 " Johannesburg." 
 
 "What? But it's nonsense." 
 
 " It's fact." 
 
 " Well of course you can't go." 
 
 " Who says so? " 
 
 " Of course you can't go, and leave us here all 
 alone," she replied, speaking quickly. " Why, it's too 
 
"SWEET HOME!" 
 
 preposterous! I've been treated shamefully enough 
 all these years, but this puts the crowning straw on to 
 it," she went on, beginning to mix her metaphor, as 
 angry people and especially angry women will. 
 " Of course you can't go ! " 
 
 To one statement, as made above, he was at no 
 pains to reply. He had heard it so often that it had 
 long since passed into the category of " not new, not 
 true, and doesn't matter." To the other he answered : 
 
 " I've an idea that the term ' of course ' makes the 
 other way; I can go, and I am going in fact, I have 
 already booked my passage by the Persian, sailing 
 from Southampton the day after to-morrow. Look! 
 will that convince you?" holding out the passage 
 ticket. 
 
 Then there was a scene an awful racket. It was 
 infamous. She would not put up with such treatment. 
 It amounted to desertion, and so forth. Yes, it was 
 a " scene," indeed. But force of habit had utterly 
 dulled its effectiveness as a weapon. Indeed, the only 
 effect it might have been calculated to produce in the 
 mind of the offending party had he not already secured 
 his berth, would be that of moving him to sally forth 
 and carry out that operation on the spot. 
 
 " Look here ! " he said, when failure of breath and 
 vocabulary had perforce effected a lull. " I've had 
 about enough of this awful life, and so I'm going to 
 try if I can't do something to set things right again, 
 before it's too late. Now, the Johannesburg ' boom ' 
 is the thing to do it, if anything will. It's kill or cure." 
 
 "And what if it's kill?" 
 
 " What if it's kill? Then, one may as well take it 
 
 3 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDEP. 
 
 fighting. Better, anyway, than scattering one's brains 
 on that hearth-rug some morning in the small hours 
 out of sheer disgust with the dead hopelessness of life. 
 That's what it is coming to as things now are." 
 
 " All very well. But, in that case, what is to become 
 of me of us?" 
 
 A very hard look came into the man's face at the 
 question. 
 
 " In that case draw on the other side of the house. 
 There's plenty there," he answered shortly, re-lighting 
 his pipe, which had gone out in mid-blast. 
 
 The reply seemed to fan up her wrath anew, and 
 she started in to talk at him again. Under which 
 circumstances, perhaps it was just as well that a couple 
 of heavy bangs overhead and a series of appalling yells, 
 betokening a nursery catastrophe, should cut short 
 her eloquence, and start her off, panic-stricken, to 
 investigate. 
 
 Left alone, still standing with his back to the mantel- 
 piece, Laurence Stanninghame put forth a hand. It 
 shook was, in fact, all of a tremble. 
 
 " Look at that! " he said to himself. " The squalid 
 racket of this rough-and-tumble life is playing the 
 devil with my nerves. I believe I couldn't drink a 
 wineglassful of grog at this moment without spilling 
 half of it on the floor. I'll try, anyhow." 
 
 He unlocked a chiffonier, produced a whisky bottle, 
 and, having poured some into a wineglass, not filling 
 it, tossed off the " nip." 
 
 "That's better," he said. Then mechanically he 
 moved to the window and stood looking out, though 
 in reality seeing nothing. He was thinking think- 
 
 4 
 
"SWEET HOME!'* 
 
 ing hard. The course he had decided to adopt was 
 the right thing as to that he had no sort of doubt. 
 He had no regular income, and such remnant of capital 
 as he still possessed was dwindling alarmingly. Men 
 had made fortunes at places like Johannesburg, start- 
 ing with almost literally the traditional half-crown, 
 why should not he? Not that he expected to make a 
 fortune; a fair competence would satisfy him, a suffi- 
 ciency. The thought of no longer being obliged to 
 hold an inquest on every sixpence ; of bidding farewell 
 forever to this life of pinching and screwing ; of dwell- 
 ing decently instead of pigging it in a cramped and 
 jerry-built semi-detached; of enjoying once more 
 some of life's brightnesses sport, for instance, of 
 which he was passionately fond ; of the means to wan- 
 der, when disposed, through earth's fairest places 
 these reflections would have fired his soul as he stood 
 there, but that the flame of hopefulness had long since 
 died within him and gone out. Now they only evoked 
 bitterness by their tantalizing allurement. 
 
 Other men had made their pile, why should not he? 
 Rainsford, for instance, who had been, if possible, 
 more down on his luck than himself Rainsford had 
 gone out to the new gold town while it was yet very 
 new and had made a good thing of it. Two or three 
 other acquaintances of his had gone there and had 
 made very much more than a good thing of it. Why 
 should not he? 
 
 Laurence Stanninghame was just touching middle 
 age. As he stood at the window, the murky Septem- 
 ber sun seemed to bring out the lines and wrinkles of 
 his clear-cut face, which was distinctly the face of a 
 
 5 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 man who has not made a good thing of life, and who 
 can never for a moment lose sight of that fact. There 
 were lines above the eyes, clear, blue, and somewhat 
 sunken eyes, which denoted the habit of the brows to 
 contract on very slight provocation, and far oftener 
 than was good for their owner's peace of mind, and the 
 bronze underlying the clear skin told of a former life 
 in the open possibly under a warmer sun than that 
 now playing upon it. As to its features, it was a 
 strong face, but there was a certain indefinable some- 
 thing about it when off its guard, which would have 
 told a close physiognomist of the possession of latent 
 instincts, unknown to their possessor, instincts which, 
 if stifled, choked, were not dead, and which, if ever 
 their depths were stirred, would yield forth strange 
 and dangerous possibilities. 
 
 He was of fine constitution, active and wiry; but 
 the cramped life and squalid worry of a year-in year- 
 out, semi-detached, suburban existence had, as he told 
 himself, played the mischief with his nerves, and now 
 to this was added the ghastly vista of impending actual 
 beggary. Whatever he did and wherever he went 
 this thought would not be quenched. It was ever with 
 him, gnawing like an aching tooth. Lying awake at 
 night it would glare at him with spectral eyes in the 
 darkness; then, unless he could force himself by all 
 manner of strange and artificial means, such as repeat- 
 ing favourite verse, and so forth, to throw it off, good- 
 bye to sleep result, nerves yet further shaken, a 
 succession of brooding days, and system thrown off 
 its balance by domestic friction and strife. Many a 
 man has sought a remedy for far less ill in the bottle, 
 
 6 
 
"SWEET HOME!" 
 
 whether of grog or laudanum; but this one's character 
 was in its strength proof against the first, while for the 
 latter, that might come, but only as a very last ex- 
 tremity. Meanwhile ofttimes he wondered how that 
 blank, hopeless feeling of having completely done with 
 life could be his, seeing that he was still in his prime. 
 Formerly eager, sanguine, warm-hearted, glowing 
 with good impulses; now indifferent, sceptical, with a 
 heart of stone and the chronic sneer of a cynic. 
 
 He was one of those men who seem born never to 
 succeed. With everything in his favour apparently, 
 Laurence Stanninghame never did succeed. Every- 
 thing he touched seemed to go wrong. If he 
 speculated, whether it was a half-crown bet or a 
 thousand-pound investment, smash went the concern. 
 He was of an inventive turn and had patented of 
 course at considerable expenditure a thing or two; 
 but by some crafty twist of the law's subtle rascalities, 
 others had managed to reap the benefit. He had tried 
 his hand at writing, but press and publisher alike shied 
 at him. He was too bitter, too bold, too sweeping, 
 too thorough. So he threw that, as he had thrown 
 other things, in sheer disgust and hopelessness. 
 
 Now he was going to cast in the net for a final effort, 
 and already his spirits began to revive at the thought. 
 Any faint spark of lingering sentiment, if any there 
 were, was quenched in the thought that the turn of the 
 wheel might bring good luck, but it was impossible it 
 could strand him in worse case. For the sentimental 
 side of it separation, long absence well, the droop 
 of the cynical corners of the mouth became more 
 emphasized at the recollection of that faded old fig- 
 
 7 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 ment, " home, sweet home," and glowing aspirations 
 after the so-called holy and pure joys of the family 
 circle; whereas the reality, a sort of Punch and Judy 
 show at best. No, there was no sentimental side to 
 this undertaking. 
 
 Yet Laurence Stanninghame's partner in life was 
 by no means a bad sort of a woman. She had plenty 
 of redeeming qualities, in that she was good-hearted 
 at bottom and well-meaning, and withal a most de- 
 voted mother. But she had a tongue and a temper, 
 together with an exceedingly injudicious, not to say 
 foolish twist of mind; and this combination, other 
 good points notwithstanding, the quality which should 
 avail to redeem has hitherto remained undiscoverable 
 in any live human being. Furthermore, she owned a 
 will. When two wills come into contact the weakest 
 goes under, and that soon. Then there may be peace. 
 In this case neither went under, because, presumably, 
 evenly balanced. Result warfare, incessant, chronic. 
 
 Having finished his pipe, Laurence Stanninghame 
 got out a hat and an umbrella, and set to work to 
 brush the former and furl the latter prior to going out. 
 The hat was not of that uniform and glossy smooth- 
 ness which one could see into to shave, and the 
 umbrella was weather-beaten of aspect. The morning 
 coat, though well cut, was shiny at the seams. Yet, 
 in spite of the wear and tear of his outer gear, with so 
 unmistakably thoroughbred a look was their wearer 
 stamped that it seemed he might have worn anything. 
 Many a man would have looked and felt shabby in this 
 long service get-up ; this one never gave it a thought, 
 
 8 
 
"SWEET HOME!" 
 
 .or, if he did, it was only to wonder whether he should 
 ever again, after this time, put on that venerable 
 " stove-pipe," and if so, what sort of experiences 
 would have been his in the interim. 
 , Now there was a patter of feet in the passage, the 
 door-handle turned softly, and a little girl came in. 
 She was a sweetly-pretty child, with that rare combi- 
 nation of dark-lashed brown eyes and golden hair. 
 Here, if anywhere, was Laurence Stanninghame's soft 
 place. His other progeny was represented by two 
 sturdy boys, combative of instinct and firm of tread, 
 and whose gambols, whether pacific or bellicose, were 
 apt to shake the rattletrap old semi-detached and the 
 parental nerves in about equal proportions; constitut- 
 ing, furthermore, a standing bone of parental conten- 
 tion. This little one, however, having turned ten, was 
 of a companionable age; and to the male understand- 
 ing the baby stage does not, as a rule, commend itself. 
 
 She was full of the racket which had just taken 
 place overhead; but to this Laurence hardly listened. 
 There was always a racket overhead, a fight or a fall 
 or a bumping. One more or less hardly mattered. 
 He was thinking of his own weakness. Would she 
 feel parting with him? Children as a rule were easily 
 consoled. A new and gaudy toy would make them 
 forget anything. And appositely to this thought, the 
 little one's mind was also full of a marvellous engine 
 she had seen the last time she had been taken into 
 London one which wound up with a key and ran a 
 great distance without stopping. 
 
 Being alone for by this time he had come to regard 
 9 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 all display of affection before others as a weakness- 
 Laurence drew the child to him and kissed her 
 tenderly. 
 
 " And supposing that engine were some day to come 
 puffing in, Fay; to-morrow or the day after? " he said. 
 
 The little one's eyes danced. The toy was an ex- 
 pensive one, quite out of reach for her, she knew. If 
 only it were not! And now her delighted look and 
 her reply made him smile with a strange mixture of 
 sadness and cynicism. And as approaching footsteps 
 heralded further invasion, he put the child from him 
 hurriedly, and went out. Hailing a tram car, he made 
 his way up to town to carry out the remainder of his 
 sudden, though not very extensive, preparations. 
 
 Now on the following evening arrived a package of 
 toys, of a splendour hitherto unparalleled within that 
 dingy suburban semi-detached, and there was a great 
 banging of gorgeous drums and a tootling of glitter- 
 ing trumpets, and little Fay was round-eyed with 
 delight in the acquisition of the wondrous locomotive, 
 ultimately declining to go to sleep save with one tiny 
 fist shut tight round the chimney thereof. That would 
 counteract any passing effect that might be inspired 
 by a vacant chair, thought Laurence Stanninghame, 
 amid the roar of the mail train speeding through the 
 raw haze of the early morning. Sentiment? feelings? 
 What had he to do with such? They were luxuries, 
 and as such only for those who could afford to indulge 
 in them. He could not. 
 
 JO 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 ADAM'S FIRST WIFE. 
 
 THE R. M. S. Persian was cleaving her southward 
 way through the smooth translucence of the tropical 
 sea. 
 
 It was the middle of the morning. Her passengers, 
 scattered around her quarter-deck in the coolness of 
 the sheltering awning, were amusing themselves after 
 their kind; some gregarious and chatting in groups, 
 others singly, or in pairs, reading. The men were 
 mostly in flannels and blazers, and deck-shoes; the 
 women affected light array of a cool nature; and all 
 looked as though it were too much trouble to move 
 or even to speak, though here and there an individual 
 more enterprising than his or her fellows would make 
 a spasmodic attempt at a constitutional, said attempt 
 usually resolving itself into five and a half feeble turns, 
 up and down the clear part of the deck, to culminate 
 in abrupt collapse; for it is warm in the tropical seas. 
 
 "What a lazy Johnnie you are, Stanninghame ! 
 Now, what the deuce are you thinking about all this 
 time, I wonder? " 
 
 He addressed, who had been gazing out upon the 
 sea and sky-line, plunged in dreamy thought, did not 
 even turn his head. 
 
 " Get into this chair, Holmes, if you want to talk," 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 he said. " A fellow can't wring his own neck and 
 emit articulate sound at the same time. What? " 
 
 The other, who had come up behind, laughed, and 
 dropped into the empty deck-chair beside Laurence. 
 He was the latter's cabin chum, and the two had 
 become rather friendly. 
 
 " Nothing to do and plenty of time to do it in," he 
 went on, stretching himself and yawning. " I'm jolly 
 sick of this voyage already." 
 
 " And we're scarcely half through with it? It's a 
 fact, Holmes, but I'm not sick of it a bit." 
 
 "Eh?" and the other stared. "That's odd, Stan- 
 ninghame. You, I should have thought, if anyone, 
 would be just dog-gone tired of it by now. Why, you 
 never even cut into any of the fun that's going such 
 as it is." 
 
 " You may well put that in, Holmes. As, for in- 
 stance listen ! " 
 
 For the whanging of the piano in the saloon beneath 
 had attained to an even greater pitch of discord than 
 was normally the case. To it was added the excru- 
 ciating rasp of a fiddle. 
 
 "Heavens! Are they immolating a stowaway cat 
 down there? " murmured Laurence, with a little shud- 
 der. " It would have been more humane to have put 
 the misguided brute to a painless end." 
 
 Holmes spluttered. 
 
 " It reminds me," he said, " of one voyage I made 
 by this line. Some of the passengers got up what they 
 called an ' Amusement Committee.' " 
 
 "A fearful and wonderful monster! " 
 
 " Just so. It's mission was to worry the soul out of 
 
 12 
 
ADAM'S FIRST WIFE. 
 
 each and all of us, in search of some nefarious gift. 
 Oh, and we mustered plenty, from the 'cello to the 
 ' bones.' Well, what is going on down there now is 
 sheer delight in comparison. Imagine the present 
 performance heaped up only relieved by caterwauls 
 of about equal quality and that from 6 A. M. until 
 ' lights out.' " 
 
 "I don't want to imagine it, thank you, Holmes; 
 so spare what little of that faculty I still retain. But, 
 say now, when was this eventful voyage? " 
 
 " In the summer of '84." 
 
 " Precisely. I remember now. It was in the news- 
 papers at the time that in more than one ship's log 
 were entered strange reports of gruesome and wholly 
 indefinable noises heard at night in certain latitudes. 
 Some of the crews mutinied, and there was an instance 
 on record of more than one hand, bursting with super- 
 stition, going mad and jumping overboard. So, you 
 see, Holmes, your ' Amusement Committee ' doubly 
 deserved hanging." 
 
 The delicious readiness of this " lie " so fetched 
 Holmes that he opened his head and emitted a howl 
 of laughter. He made such a row, in fact, that neither 
 of them heard the convulsively half-repressed splutter 
 which burst forth somewhere behind them. 
 
 " Well, you were going to explain how it is you 
 haven't got sick of the voyage yet," said Holmes, 
 when his roar had subsided. 
 
 " Was I ? I didn't say so. What a chap you are 
 for returning to worry a point, Holmes. However, I 
 don't mind telling you. The fact is, I enjoy this 
 voyage because it is so thoroughly and delightfully 
 
 13 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 restful. You are not only allowed to do nothing, but 
 are actually expected to perform that easy and con- 
 genial feat. There is nothing to worry you abso- 
 lutely nothing not even a baby in the next cabin." 
 
 " I don't mind a little worry now and then," objected 
 the other, in the tone and with the look of one who 
 was ignorant of the real meaning of the word. " It 
 shakes one up a bit, don't you know relieves the 
 monotony of life." 
 
 " Oh, does it? Look here, Holmes; I don't say it 
 in an ' assert-my-superiority ' sense, but I believe I'm 
 a little older than you. Now, I've had a trifle too 
 much of the commodity under discussion. In fact, I 
 would take my chances of the monotony in order to 
 dispense with any more of the other thing." 
 
 Holmes cast a furtive and curious glance at his 
 companion, but made no immediate reply. He was an 
 average, good-looking, well-built specimen of Young 
 England, and his healthy sun-burnt countenance 
 showed, in its cheery serenity, that, as the other had 
 hinted, he was not speaking from knowledge. At 
 any rate, it was a marked contrast to the rather lined 
 and prematurely careworn countenance of Laurence 
 Stanninghame, even as his frank, jolly laugh was to 
 the half-stifled grin which would lurk around the 
 satirical corners of the latter's mouth when anything 
 amused him. 
 
 " What a row those women are making over there! " 
 remarked Laurence, as peal after peal of feminine 
 laughter went up from one of the groups above 
 referred to. 
 
 " That ass Swaynston, I suppose," growled the 
 14 
 
ADAM'S FIRST WIFE. 
 
 other. " Don't know what anybody can see funny 
 about the fellow; he makes me sick. By the way, I 
 haven't seen Miss Ormskirk on deck this morning." 
 
 u That '11 make Swaynston sick, won't it? Isn't he 
 one of her poodles? " 
 
 "Eh? Her what?" 
 
 " Fetch and carry ; stand up on his hind legs and 
 beg. There good dog! and all that sort of thing, 
 you know; go to heel, too, when ordered." 
 
 Holmes laughed again, this time in rather a shame- 
 faced way, for he was conscious of having filled the 
 role whose subserviency was thus pungently charac- 
 terized by his cynical companion. 
 
 " Oh, dash it all, Stanninghame, don't be such an 
 old bear! " he burst forth. " A fellow can't help doing 
 things for a devilish pretty girl, eh? " 
 
 " A good many fellows can't, apparently, for this 
 one. Directly she appears on the scene they go at 
 her like flies at a honey pot. There's the doctor, and 
 the fourth brass-button man er, I beg his pardon, 
 the fourth ' officer,' and Swaynston, and yourself, 
 and Heaven knows how many more. And one gets 
 hold of a cushion which she doesn't want ; another a 
 wrap of which the same holds good; two of you 
 strive to rend a deck-chair limb from limb in your 
 eagerness to dump it down on the very last spot in 
 the ship where she desires to sit, what time you are 
 all scowling at each other as though there was not 
 room for any given two of you in the same world. I 
 don't want to hurt your feelings, Holmes, but, upon 
 
 my word, it's the most d ridiculous spectacle on 
 
 earth," 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 " I don't see why it should be," was the half-snuffy 
 rejoinder. " There's nothing ridiculous in common 
 civility." 
 
 " No, only to see you all treading on each other's 
 heels to do konza to a woman who's nearly losing her 
 life trying not to laugh at the crowd of you." 
 
 " Hallo! what's this? " sung out Holmes, not sorry 
 for an excuse to change the subject. " Why, you 
 used a Zulu word, Stanninghame, and yet you say 
 you never were in South Africa before." 
 
 " Well, and then? I've once or twice known fellows 
 use a Greek word who had never been near the land 
 of Socrates in their lives." 
 
 " Still, that's different. Every fellow learns Greek 
 at school, but no fellow learns Zulu, eh? " 
 
 " You can't swear to that. Well, never mind. Per- 
 haps I have been mugging it up as a preliminary to 
 coming out here. Note, however, Holmes, that I 
 used the word advisedly. Konza does not mean to 
 show civility, but to do homage, and that of a tolerably 
 abject kind in fact, to knuckle under." 
 
 " All the same, I believe you have been out here 
 before," went on Holmes, staring at him with a new 
 interest. " Only you're such a mysterious chap that 
 you won't let on." 
 
 " Have it so, if you will. Only, aren't you rather 
 drawing a red herring across the trail, Holmes? We 
 were talking about Miss Ormskirk." 
 
 " Urn yes, so we were. But, have you talked to 
 her at all, Stanninghame? I believe even you would 
 be fetched if you did." 
 
 " H'm well, I'd better leave it alone then, hadn't 
 16 
 
ADAM'S FIRST WIFE. 
 
 I, seeing that I undertook this voyage not for love, 
 but for money? What's her name, by the way?" 
 
 Holmes stared. " Her name," he began " Oh 
 
 er I see; her other name? By Jove! it's an odd 
 one. Lilith." 
 
 "An old one too; the oldest she-name on record, 
 bar none." 
 
 " What? How does that come in? " 
 
 "Tradition hath it that Lilith was Adam's first 
 wife. That makes it the oldest she-name on record, 
 doesn't it? " 
 
 " Of course. What a rum chap you are, Stanning- 
 hame ! Now, I wonder how many fellows could have 
 told one that? " 
 
 " Well, I am a ' know-a-little-of-everything,' they 
 tell me," said Laurence, without a shade of self- 
 complacency. " But, I say, what do these two 
 want bothering around? Not another subscription 
 already? " 
 
 Two individuals, armed with mysterious pencil and 
 paper, were moving from group to group, with a word 
 to each. The hawk-like profile of the one bespoke 
 his nationality if not his tribe, even as the pug-nosed, 
 squab-faced figure-head of the other spoke to his. 
 
 " It's the ' sweep/ " said Holmes, with kindling 
 interest. "They're going to draw it in the smoke- 
 room. Come along and see it. It '11 be something 
 to do." 
 
 " But I don't want something to do. I want to do 
 
 nothing, as I told you just now, and Hallo! By 
 
 George, he's gone!" 
 
 One glance at the retreating Holmes, who was 
 17 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 making all sail for the smoke-room, and Laurence 
 tranquilly resumed his former occupation gazing 
 out over the blue-green surface, to wit. Not long, 
 however, was he to be left to the enjoyment of the 
 same. 
 
 " Can I have this chair? Is it anybody's? " 
 
 He turned, but did not start at the voice, which 
 was soft and well modulated. The two deck-chairs 
 had been backed against the companion, in whose 
 doorway now stood framed the form of the speaker. 
 
 Rather tall, of exquisite proportions, billowing in 
 splendid curves from the perfectly round waist, the 
 form was about as complete an example of female 
 anatomy as humanity could show of whatever race or 
 clime. The head, well set, was carried rather proudly, 
 the cut of the cool, light blouse displaying a pillar- 
 like throat. Hazel eyes, melting, dark fringed ; brows 
 strongly marked, enough to show plenty of character, 
 without being heavy; hair abundant, curled in a 
 fringe upon the forehead, and drawn back from the 
 head in sheeny, dark brown waves. Such was the 
 vision which Laurence Stanninghame beheld, as he 
 turned at the sound of the voice. Well, what then? 
 He had seen it before. 
 
 " It isn't anybody's chair," he replied, rising. 
 
 " Oh, thank you," she said, stepping forth. " No, 
 don't trouble; I can carry it myself," she added. 
 
 " Where do you want it taken to? " he said, ignor- 
 ing her protest, and thinking, with grim amusement, 
 how he was about to fulfil the very role he had been 
 satirizing his younger friend about, namely, fetch and 
 carry for the spoilt beauty of the quarter-deck. 
 
 18 
 
ADAM'S FIRST WIFE. 
 
 "Oh, thanks; anywhere that's cool." 
 
 "Then you can't do better than leave it where it 
 is," he rejoined, with a quiet smile, setting down the 
 chair again and resuming his own. 
 
 Lilith Ormskirk smiled too, but she made no objec- 
 tion, sliding comfortably into the chair, and gazing 
 meditatively at the point of the neat and shapely deck- 
 shoe just peeping forth from beneath her skirt. 
 
 "What are they doing over there?" she began; 
 " drawing the ' sweep,' are they not? How is it you 
 are not there too, Mr. Stanninghame? Even those 
 of the men who won't help us in getting up any fun 
 are always ready enough for anything of that kind. 
 Well, I suppose it gives them something to do." 
 
 Something to do! that eternal " something to do! " 
 
 " But that's just what I don't want not on board 
 this ship, at any rate," he retorted. " It's a grand 
 opportunity for lazing, an opportunity that can't occur 
 often in life, and I want to make the most of it." 
 
 She glanced furtively at his face. It was a face that 
 interested her, had done so since she first beheld it. 
 A very out-of-the-common face, she had decided ; and 
 the careless reserve, the very indifference of its owner's 
 habit of speech, had powerfully added to her interest. 
 They had met before, had exchanged a few words now 
 and again, but had never conversed. 
 
 " A thing that is a standing puzzle to me," he went 
 on " would be, rather, if I knew a little less of human 
 nature is the alacrity with which people waste their 
 precious time in order to make a few shillings. It 
 isn't a craving after profit either, for there can't be 
 much profit about it. Yet Myers there, the Hebraic 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 instinct ever to the fore, must needs throw away the 
 splendid recuperative opportunities afforded by a sea 
 voyage, must needs spend the whole of each and every 
 morning getting up that miserable ' sweep/ It must 
 be the sheer Hebraic instinct of delighting to handle 
 coin the ecstasy of contact with it even." 
 
 "And the other the one who helps him? He's 
 not Hebraic?" 
 
 " No, he's English. Therefore he must be forever 
 ' getting up ' something. We pride ourselves upon 
 our solid deliberation, yet we are about the fussiest 
 and most interfering race on the face of the globe." 
 
 "Then you don't have anything to do with the 
 popular midday delight? " 
 
 " Oh, yes. I hand them my shilling every morning 
 when they come round, and pouch tranquilly later on 
 what they see fit to restore to me as the result of that 
 modest investment." 
 
 She laughed, and as she did so Laurence looked her 
 full in the face. He wanted to find out again what 
 there could be in this girl that reduced everybody to 
 subjection so utter and complete. Was it in the swift 
 flash of the fringed eyes, in the sensuous attractiveness 
 of a certain swarthy, golden, mantling shade of colour 
 which harmonized so well with the bright clearness 
 of the eyes, with the smooth serenity of the brow? He 
 could not determine; yet in that brief fraction of a 
 moment, as he looked, he was uneasily conscious of 
 a certain magnetic thrill communicating itself even 
 to him. 
 
 " You are stronger-minded than I am," she said. 
 " I'm afraid I bet shockingly at times." 
 
 20 
 
ADAM'S FIRST WIFE. 
 
 " Well, whenever I do I invariably lose, which is a 
 first rate curative to any temptation towards that 
 especial form of dissipation." 
 
 " Look now, Mr. Stanninghame, I'm going to take 
 you to task," she went on. " Why won't you ever 
 help us in getting up anything? " 
 
 " But I do help you." 
 
 " You do? Why, there was that concert the other 
 night you refused when you were asked to take part 
 in it." 
 
 " But I did take part in it as audience. You must 
 have an audience, you know. It's essential to the 
 performance." 
 
 " Don't be provoking, now," she said, with a laugh 
 which belied the rebuke, for this sort of fencing de- 
 lighted her. " You never take part in our dances." 
 
 " Dances? Did you ever happen to notice the top 
 of my head?" 
 
 " I don't think so," she replied, with a splutter of 
 mirth, wondering what whimsicality was coming next. 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Only that its covering is getting rather thin, as no 
 self-respecting haircutter ever loses the opportunity of 
 reminding me." 
 
 " That's nothing. Look at Mr. Dyson, for in- 
 stance. Now he might say that. Yet he is a most 
 indefatigable dancer." 
 
 " Yes, and that ostrich-egg of his bobbing up and 
 down above the gay and giddy rout is one of the most 
 ridiculous sights on earth. Are you urging me to 
 furnish a similar absurdity? " 
 
 " But you might do something to help amuse us. 
 In fact, it is only your duty." 
 
 21 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 " Hallo ! Excuse me, Miss Ormskirk, but that's 
 exactly what that fellow Mac Mac something I 
 never can remember his name the doctor, you know 
 was trying to drive into me the other night. I told 
 him I didn't come on board this ship for the purpose 
 of amusing my fellow-creatures not any but with 
 the object of being transported to Cape Town with 
 all possible despatch." 
 
 " Then you leave the ship at Cape Town? Are 
 you, too, going on to Johannesburg?" 
 
 " Not being dead, yes." 
 
 " Not being dead? Why, what in the world do you 
 mean?" 
 
 " Oh, only that Holmes was asking after all his old 
 friends one night in the smoke-room, and all who 
 were not dead had gone to Johannesburg. Others 
 I've heard talking the same way. So I've got into 
 the habit of thinking there are but two states death 
 and Johannesburg." 
 
 " Tell me, Mr. Stanninghame," said Lilith, strug- 
 gling with a laugh, "are you ever by any chance 
 serious? " 
 
 "Oh, yes; I'm never anything else." 
 
 She hardly felt inclined to laugh now. There was 
 a subtle something in the tone a something under- 
 lying the whimsicality of the words, that seemed to 
 quell her rising mirth. Again she glanced at his face, 
 and felt her interest deepen tenfold. 
 
 "We may meet again then," she said, her tone 
 unconsciously softening; " I am going to Johannes- 
 burg soon." 
 
 Meet again? Why, they had only just met; and 
 
 22 
 
ADAM'S FIRST WIFE. 
 
 what was it to him? Yet still more was he conscious 
 of a thrill as of latent witchery thrown over him, as 
 he lounged there in the warm luxuriousness of the 
 tropical noontide, with which this beautiful creature 
 at his side, in her careless^attitude, all symmetry and 
 grace, seemed so wholly in keeping. 
 
 " What a strange name that is of yours," he said, in 
 the abrupt, unthought-out way which was so charac- 
 teristic of him. 
 
 She started slightly at its very abruptness, then 
 smiled. 
 
 "Is it?" she said; "well, your own is not a very 
 common one." 
 
 " No, it isn't; which is a bore at times, because 
 people will persist in spelling it wrong. It might 
 have been worse, though. They went in for giving 
 us all more or less cloth-of-gold sort of names, though 
 mine smacks rather of the cloister than of the lists. 
 One of my brothers they dubbed Aylmer. He was 
 in a regiment, and the mess would persist in calling 
 him Jack, for short. He resented it at first after- 
 wards came to prefer it. Said it was more con- 
 venient. Well, it was." 
 
 " Mine is older than that. The very oldest femi- 
 nine name on record," she said, with just a spice of 
 quiet mischief. " Lilith was Adam's first wife." 
 
 If she thought the other was going to look foolish 
 at hearing his own words thus reproduced in such 
 literal fashion, she never made a greater mistake in 
 her life. 
 
 " So tradition hath it," he rejoined, with perfect un- 
 concern. " It's a queer out-of-the-way sort of name 
 
 23 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 I'm not sure I don't rather like it. There's a creep- 
 ing suggestion of witchery about it, too, which is on 
 the whole attractive." 
 
 He was looking at her straight in the eyes, for they 
 had both risen, the luncheon-bell having rung. She 
 unflinchingly returned the glance, which on both 
 sides was that of two adversaries mentally appraising 
 each other prior to a rapier-bout. 
 
 " Then beware such unholy spells," she replied, 
 with a light but enigmatical laugh. And turning, she 
 left him. 
 
 Now Holmes, who, bursting with astonishment and 
 trepidation as he beheld how his friend was en- 
 gaged, came bustling up, with a scared and furtive 
 demeanour. 
 
 " By the Lord, old man, we just have put our foot 
 in it," he sputtered. " All the time we were sitting 
 here, Miss Ormskirk was just inside the companion. 
 She must have heard every word we said." 
 
 " Don't care a hang if she did." 
 
 " Man alive, but we were talking about her! About 
 her, and she heard it! Don't you understand?" 
 
 "Perfectly; still I don't care a hang. A hang? 
 No, nor the rope, nor the drop, nor the whole jolly 
 gallows do I care. Will that do?" 
 
 Holmes gasped. This fellow Stanninghame was a 
 lunatic. Mad, by Jove! Still gasping as he thought 
 of the enormity of the situation, he left without 
 another word, diving below to try and drown his con- 
 fusion in a whisky and soda, iced. 
 
 But the other, still lingering on the now deserted 
 deck, was conscious of a very unwonted sensation. 
 
 24 
 
ADAM'S FIRST WIFE. 
 
 The spell which he had derided so bitterly when be- 
 holding others drawn within its toils had begun to 
 weave itself around him. This vague stirring of his 
 mental pulses, what did it mean? Heavens! it was 
 horrible. It brought back old memories, whose tin- 
 pot unreality was never recalled save as subject matter 
 for bitter gibe and mockery. He could not have 
 believed it possible. 
 
 " It's the nerves," he told himself. " These years 
 of squalid worry have done it. My nerves are shaken 
 to bits. Well, I must pull them together again. But 
 oh, the bosh of it! the utter bosh of it! " 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 "BEWARE SUCH UNHOLY SPELLS!" 
 
 THE sway of Lilith Ormskirk over the saloon and 
 quarter-deck of the Persian was as complete as any 
 woman's sway ever is. From the grizzled captain 
 nominally under whose charge she was making the 
 voyage down to the newly emancipated schoolboy 
 going out to seek employment, the male element was, 
 with scarcely an exception, her collective slave. 
 Among the women, of course, her rule was less com- 
 plete; those who were furthest from all possibility of 
 rivalling her in attractiveness of person or charm of 
 manner being, of course, the mose virulent in their 
 jealousy and the expression thereof. Lilith, however, 
 cared nothing for this, or, if she did, gave no sign. 
 She was never bitter, even towards those whom she 
 knew to be among her worst detractors, never spite- 
 ful. She was not faultless, not by any means, but her 
 failings did not lie in the direction of littleness. But 
 she always seemed bright and happy, and full of life 
 too much so, thought more than one of her per- 
 fervid adorers, who would fain have monopolized her. 
 
 She was in the mid-twenties that age when the 
 egotism and rather narrow enthusiasms and preju- 
 dices of the girl shade off into the graciousness and 
 savoir-vivre of womanhood. She could look back 
 on more than one foolishness, from whose results 
 
 26 
 
"BEWARE SUCH UNHOLY SPELLS!" 
 
 she had providentially escaped, with an uneasy shud- 
 der, followed by a heartfelt thankfulness, and a sense 
 of having not only learnt but profited by experience, 
 which sense enlarged her mind and her sympathies, 
 and imparted to her demeanour a self-possession and 
 serenity beyond her years. 
 
 We said the male element, with scarce an exception, 
 was her collective slave. Such an exception was 
 Laurence Stanninghame. 
 
 Without being a misogynist, he had no great 
 opinion of women. He owned they might be delight- 
 ful frequently were up to a certain point, and this 
 was the point at which you began to take them seri- 
 ously. But to treat any one of them as though the 
 sun had ceased to shine because her presence was 
 withdrawn, struck him as sheer insanity. It might be 
 all right for youngsters like Holmes or Swaynston, 
 the licensed fool of the smoking room, or Dyson, to 
 whose senile enthusiasm for the mazy rout we have 
 heard allusion made the latter on the principle of 
 " no fool like an old fool " ; but not for him not for 
 a man in the matured vigour of his physical and men- 
 tal powers. Wherefore, when forced himself to ac- 
 knowledge the spell which Lilith had begun to weave 
 around him, he unhesitatingly set it down to im- 
 paired nerves. 
 
 As a direct result, he avoided the cause. It was 
 a cowardly course of action, he told himself. He was 
 afraid of her. If she could throw the magic of her 
 sorcery over him during a brief ten minutes of con- 
 versation, what the very deuce would happen if he 
 allowed himself to be drawn into anything approach- 
 
 27 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 ing the easy-going shipboard intimacy deck-walk- 
 ing by moonlight, chairs drawn up in a snug corner 
 during the heat of the day, and so forth! Who 
 knew what latent capacities for being made an ass 
 of might not develop themselves within him. He 
 felt really alarmed. 
 
 Let it not be supposed that any scruple on the 
 ground of conventionality, obligation, what not, 
 entered into his misgivings. For Laurence Stanning- 
 hame had been clean disillusioned all along the line. 
 He hadn't the shred of an illusion left. He had 
 started life with a fair stock-in-trade of good inten- 
 tions and straight ideas, and, indeed, had acted up 
 to them honestly, and in good faith. But now? 
 
 " I've had a h 1 of a time! " he would exclaim to 
 
 himself, during one of those meditative gazes out 
 seaward, for which we heard his younger friend 
 taking him to task. " Yes just that." And now, 
 only touching middle life, he believed in nothing and 
 nobody. He had become a cold, keen, strong- 
 headed, selfish cynic. If ever his mind reverted to 
 the fresher and more generous impulses or actions of 
 his younger days, it was with a contemptuous self- 
 pity. His view of the morality of life now was just 
 the amount of success, of advantage, of gratification 
 to be got out of it. He thoroughly indorsed the 
 principle of the old roue's advice to his grandson: 
 " Be good, and you may be happy but you'll have 
 
 d d little fun," taking care to italicise the word 
 
 " may." For he had found that the first clause of 
 the saw had brought him neither happiness nor fun. 
 
 With his fellow-passengers on board the Persian 
 28 
 
"BEWARE SUCH UNHOLY SPELLS!" 
 
 he was neither popular nor the reverse. Among the 
 men, some liked him, others didn't. He was genial 
 enough, and good company in the smoking room, 
 but wouldn't do anything in the way of promoting 
 the general amusement and that voyage was a par- 
 ticularly lively one in the matter of getting things up. 
 The fair section of the saloon was puzzled, and could 
 not make up its mind whether to dislike him or not. 
 For the first, he consistently, though not ostenta- 
 tiously, avoided it, instead of laying himself out to 
 make himself agreeable though indications were not 
 wanting that he could so make himself if he chose. 
 For the second, the fact that he remained an unknown 
 quantity was in his favour, if only that the unfamiliar- 
 ity of reserve mystery never fails to appeal strongly 
 to the minds of women and savages. 
 
 It was not so difficult for him to avoid Lilith Orms- 
 kirk, if only that until that morning he had hardly 
 exchanged a hundred words with her at a time. 
 Wherefore the upshot of his resolve was noticeable 
 neither by its object nor by the passengers at large. 
 Holmes, indeed, who, having recovered from his con- 
 sternation, had been secretly watching his friend, was 
 anticipating the fun of seeing the latter fall headlong 
 into the pit whose brink he had so boldly skirted, so 
 openly derided. But he was disappointed. Lau- 
 rence, if he referred to Lilith again, did so in the same 
 casual, indifferent way as before, nor did he ever 
 terminate any of his dreamy and seaward-gazing medi- 
 tations in order to open converse with her, even 
 with such inducement as solitary propinquity on more 
 than one occasion, 
 
 29 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 " By Jove! the fellow is a cross between an icicle 
 and a stone," quoth Holmes to himself, in mingled 
 wonder and disgust. 
 
 It was night warm, sensuous, tropical night. 
 There was dancing in the saloon, and the glare from 
 the skylight and the banging of the piano and chatter 
 of voices gave forth strange contrast to the awesome 
 stillness of the great liquid plain, the dewy richness 
 of the air, the stars hanging in golden clusters from 
 a black vault, the fiery eye of some larger planet roll- 
 ing and flashing among them as the revolving beacon 
 of a lighthouse. Here the muffled throb of the pro- 
 peller, and the rushing hiss of water as the prow of 
 the great steamer sheared through the placid surface, 
 furrowing up on either side a long line of phosphor- 
 escent wave. Such a contrast he who stood alone in 
 the darkness, leaning over the taffrail, could appre- 
 ciate nicely. 
 
 There were quick, light footsteps. Somebody else 
 was walking the deck. Well, whoever it was, he him- 
 self was screened by the stem of one of the ship's boats 
 swung in and resting on chocks. They would not see 
 him, which was all right, for he was in a queer mood 
 and not inclined to talk. After a turn or two, the foot- 
 steps paused, then something brushed his elbow in 
 the darkness, as suddenly starting away, while a half- 
 frightened voice exclaimed: 
 
 " Oh, I beg your pardon. I couldn't see anything 
 in the dark, just coming up out of the light of the 
 saloon, too. Why, it's Mr. Stanninghame ! " 
 
 30 
 
"BEWARE SUCH UNHOLY SPELLS!" 
 
 To one who had been out of doors even a few 
 minutes it was not very dark, for the stars were 
 shining with vivid brilliancy. It needed not the sense 
 of sight, that of hearing was enough. Nay, more, 
 a subtile sixth sense, whatever it might be, had 
 warned Laurence Stanninghame of the identity of the 
 intruder. 
 
 " No case of mistaken identity here," he said. 
 " But how is it you are all by yourself? " 
 
 " Oh, I got tired of all the whirl and chatter. I 
 craved for some fresh air, and so I stole away," said 
 Lilith. " Why, how heavy the dew is here in these 
 tropical seas! " she added, withdrawing her arm from 
 the taffrail upon which she had begun to lean. 
 
 The man, watching her furtively, said nothing for 
 a moment. That same chord within him thrilled to 
 her voice, her propinquity. Doubtless his nerves, 
 high strung with recent worry, were playing the fool 
 with him. He was conscious of a kind of envenomed 
 resentment, almost aversion; yet his chief misgiving 
 at that moment, which he recognized with added 
 wrath, was lest she should leave him as quickly as she 
 had come. 
 
 "All by yourself as usual!" she went on, flashing 
 at him a bright smile. " Thinking, I suppose? " 
 
 " I don't know that I was. I believe I was trying 
 to realize the immensity and silence of the midnight 
 ocean, as far as that tin-pot racket down there would 
 allow one to realize anything. Then it occurred to 
 me how long it would take for the intense solitude to 
 drive a man mad if he were cast away alone in it." 
 
 31 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 " Not long, I should think," answered Lilith, gaz- 
 ing seriously out over the smooth, oily sea. "The 
 horror of it would soon do that for me." 
 
 " And yet why should it have such an effect at all? " 
 he went on. " The grandeur of the situation ought 
 to counterpoise any such weakness. Given enough 
 to support life without undue stinting, with a certainty 
 of rescue at the end, and, I think, a fortnight as cast- 
 away in these waveless seas would be an uncommonly 
 interesting experience." 
 
 "What? A fortnight? A whole fortnight in 
 ghastly solitude! Silence only broken by the splash 
 or snort of Heaven knows what horrible sea monster! 
 Any consideration of peril apart, I am sure that one 
 night of it would turn me into a raving, gibbering 
 lunatic." 
 
 " Perhaps. People are differently built. For my 
 part, discounting the ' sea monster,' I am certain I 
 should enjoy the experience. For one thing, there 
 would be no post." 
 
 " But no more there is here on board," she said, 
 struggling with the laugh which the dry irrelevancy 
 had brought to her lips. 
 
 " No but there's Swaynston." 
 
 This time the laugh came rippling outright, and 
 through it came the sound of footsteps. 
 
 " Oh, here you are, Miss Ormskirk. I've been 
 looking for you everywhere. This is our dance." 
 
 Lilith, catching the satirical twinkle in the other's 
 eyes in the starlight, did not know which way to turn 
 to control an overmastering impulse to laugh un- 
 interruptedly for about five minutes, the cruel part 
 
 32 
 
-BEWARE SUCH UNHOLY SPELLS!" 
 
 of it being that the interrupter was Swaynston 
 himself. 
 
 The latter, a pursy individual, was holding out an 
 arm somewhat in the attitude of a seal's flipper; but 
 Lilith did not take it. 
 
 " Do be very good-natured and excuse me," she 
 said. " I don't want to dance any more to-night; the 
 noise and heat have made my head ache." 
 
 " Really, really? I'll find you a chair then, in some 
 quiet corner," fussed Swaynston. But Lilith seemed 
 not enthusiastic over that allurement, and finally, with 
 some difficulty, she got rid of him; he grinning " from 
 the teeth outwards," but consumed with fury never- 
 theless. 
 
 So that was why she had stolen away from them all, 
 to slip up and talk in a quiet corner with that fellow 
 Stanninghame, who was probably some absconding 
 swindler, with a couple of detectives and a warrant 
 waiting for him in Table Bay? Thus Swaynston. 
 
 Nor would it have tended to allay his irritation 
 could he have heard the object of it after his 
 departure. 
 
 " So you think he is worse than the post? " she said, 
 with a laugh in her eyes. " Yet he is one of the most 
 devoted of my poodles." 
 
 The demure malice of her tone no more discon- 
 certed the other than that former endeavour to show 
 him she had overheard his remarks by quoting 
 his own words. 
 
 " Oh, yes," was the unconcerned reply. " He sits 
 up on his hind legs a little better than any of them." 
 
 For a few moments she said nothing, seeming to 
 
 33 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 have become infected with her companion's dreamy 
 meditativeness. Then: 
 
 " And you are not tired of the voyage yet? You 
 were saying the other day that its monotony was 
 enjoyable." 
 
 " I say so still. Look! " he broke off, pointing to 
 the sea. 
 
 A commotion was going on beneath its surface. 
 Their grisly shapes vivid in the disturbed phosphor- 
 escence, drawing a wake of flame behind them, 
 rushed two great sharks. Hither and thither they 
 darted, every detail of their ugly forms discernible 
 on the framing of the phosphorescent blaze, even the 
 set glare of the cruel eye; and, no less nimble in swift 
 doubling flashes, several smaller fish were trying to 
 evade the laws of-nature the absorption of the weak- 
 est, to wit. There was something indescribably 
 horrible in the fiery rush of the sea-demons beneath 
 the oily blackness of the tropical waters. 
 
 " How awful! how truly awful! " murmured Lilith, 
 with a strong shudder of repulsion, yet gazing as one 
 fascinated at the weird sight. 
 
 " Yet it is the perfection of an object lesson, one 
 that comes in just in time to point the moral to my 
 answer," he said. " If those fish, now in process of 
 being eaten, were caught and kept in an aquarium 
 tank, it might be more monotonous for them than 
 furnishing fun and food to the first comer in the way 
 of bigger fish. Possibly they might yearn for the 
 excitement of being harried, though I doubt it. That 
 sort of philosophy is reserved for us humans. If we 
 knock our heads against a brick wall we howl; if 
 
 34 
 
"BEWARE SUCH UNHOLY SPELLS!" 
 
 we haven't got a brick wall to knock them against we 
 howl louder." 
 
 " And the moral is?" 
 
 " Dona nobis pacein." 
 
 " I see," she said at last, for it took her a little while 
 to thoroughly grasp the application, partly distracted 
 as her thinking powers were in trying to find a deeper 
 meaning than the one intended. " Yet peace is a 
 thing that no one can enjoy in this world. How 
 should they when the law of life is struggle struggle 
 and strife?" 
 
 " Precisely. That, however, is due to the faultiness 
 of human nature. The philosophy of the matter is 
 the same. Its soundness remains untouched." 
 
 " Yet you are not consistent. You were implying 
 just now that, failing a brick wall to knock our heads 
 against, we started in search of one. Now does not 
 that apply to those who go out into the world to the 
 other end of the world instead of remaining peace- 
 fully at home? " she added, a sly sort of " I-have- 
 you-there " inflection in her tone. 
 
 " Pardon me. My consistency is all right. Beg- 
 ging a question will not shatter it." 
 
 "Begging a question?" 
 
 " Of course. For present purposes the said beg- 
 ging is comprised in the word ' peacefully.' See? " 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 Again she was silent. The other, watching the flash 
 of the starlight on the meditative upturned eyes, 
 the clearly marked brows, the firm setting of the lips, 
 was more conscious than ever of the latent witchery 
 in the sweet, serene face. He would not flee from its 
 
 35 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 spells now, he decided. He would meet them boldly, 
 and throw them off, coil for coil, however subtilely, 
 however dexterously they were wound about him. 
 Meanwhile, two things had not escaped him : She had 
 yielded the point gracefully, and convinced, instead 
 of launching out into a voluble farrago of irrelevant 
 rubbish, as ninety-nine women out of a hundred 
 would have done in order to have " the last word/' 
 That argued sense, judgment, tact. Further, she had 
 avoided that vulgar commonplace, instinctive to the 
 crude and unthinking mind, of whatever sex, of 
 importing a personal application into an abstract dis- 
 cussion. This, too, argued tact and mental refine- 
 ment, both qualities of rarer distribution among her 
 sex than is commonly supposed qualities, however, 
 which Laurence Stanninghame was peculiarly able 
 to appreciate. 
 
 Then she talked about other things, and he let her 
 talk, just throwing in a word here and there to stimu- 
 late the expansion of her ideas. And they were good 
 ideas, too, he decided, listening keenly, and balanc- 
 ing her every point, whether he agreed with it or not. 
 He was interested, more vividly interested than he 
 would fain admit! This girl with the enthralling 
 face and noble beauty of form, had a mind as well. 
 All the slavish adoration she received had not 
 robbed her of that. It was an experience to him, 
 as they lounged there on the taffrail together in the 
 gold-spangled* velvet hush of the tropical night. 
 How delightfully companionable she could be, he 
 thought; so responsive, so discriminating and un- 
 argumentative. Argumentativeness in women was 
 
 36 
 
"BEWARE SUCH UNHOLY SPELLS!" 
 
 a detestable vice, in his opinion, for it meant every- 
 thing but what the word itself etymologically did. 
 Craftily he drew her out, cunningly he touched up 
 every fallacy or crudeness in her ideas, in such wise 
 that she unconsciously adopted his amendments, 
 under the impression that they were all her own. 
 
 " But I have been boring you all this time," she 
 broke off at last. " Confess now, you who are nothing 
 if not candid. I have been boring your life out? " 
 
 " Then, on your own showing, I am nothing, for 
 I am not candid," he answered. " On the contrary, 
 it is an unadvisable virtue, and one calculated to 
 corner you without loophole. And you certainly 
 have not been boring me." 
 
 He thought, sardonically, what any one of those 
 whom he had caustically defined as her " poodles " 
 would give for an hour or so of similar boredom, if it 
 involved Lilith all to himself. Some of this must 
 have been reflected in his eyes, for Lilith broke in 
 quickly: 
 
 "No, you are not candid. I accept the amend- 
 ment, I can see the sarcasm in your face." 
 
 " But not on that account," he rejoined tranquilly, 
 and at the same time dropping his hand on to hers 
 as it rested on the taffrail. The act an instinctive 
 one was a dumb protest against the movement she 
 had made to withdraw. And as such Lilith read it; 
 more potent in its impulsiveness than any words 
 could have been. " Listen!" he went on. "I sup- 
 pose there is a sort of imp of scepticism sitting ever 
 upon one shoulder, and that is what you saw. Some- 
 thing in my thoughts suggested a droll contrast, that 
 
 37 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 was all. So far from boring me, you have afforded 
 me an intensely agreeable surprise." 
 
 " Now you are sneering again. I will not talk 
 any more." 
 
 He recognized in her tone a quick sensitiveness 
 not temper. Accordingly his own took on an uncon- 
 scious softness, a phenomenally unwonted softness. 
 
 " Don't be foolish, child. You know I was doing 
 nothing of the sort. Go on with what you were say- 
 ing at once." 
 
 " What was I saying? Oh, I remember. That 
 idea that board-ship life shows people in their real 
 character. Do you believe in it? " 
 
 " Only in the case of those who have no real 
 character to show. Wherein is a paradox. Those 
 who have got any well, don't show it, either on 
 board ship or on shore." 
 
 " I believe you are right. Now, my own character, 
 do you think it shows out more readable on board than 
 it would on shore." 
 
 " Do you think you have me so transparently as 
 that? What was I saying just now on that head?" 
 
 " I see. Really, though, I had no ulterior motive. 
 I asked the question in perfect good faith. Tell me 
 if anyone can, you can. Tell me. Shall I make 
 a success a good thing of life? I often wonder." 
 
 She threw up her head with a quick movement, 
 and the wide, serious eyes, fixed full upon his, seemed 
 to flash in the starlight. He met the glance with one 
 as earnest and unswerving as her own. 
 
 " You rate my powers of vaticination too high," he 
 said slowly, " and you are groping after an ideal." 
 
 38 
 
-BEWARE SUCH UNHOLY SPELLS!" 
 
 " Perhaps. Tell me, though, what you think, 
 character-reader as you are. Shall I make a success 
 of life?" 
 
 " I should think the chances were pretty evenly 
 balanced either way, inclining, if anything, to the 
 reverse." 
 
 " Thanks. I shall remember that." 
 
 " But you are not obliged to believe it." 
 
 " No. I shall remember it. And now I must 
 go below; it is nearly time for putting out the saloon 
 lights. Good-night. I have enjoyed our talk so much." 
 
 She had extended her hand, and as he took it, the 
 sympathetic was it magnetic? pressure was mutual, 
 almost lingering. 
 
 " Good-night," he said. " The enjoyment has not 
 been all on one side." 
 
 Left alone, he returned to his solitary musings 
 tried to, rather, for there was no " return " about the 
 matter, because now they took an entirely new line. 
 His late companion would intrude upon them nay, 
 monopolized them. She had appealed powerfully to 
 his senses, to his mind, how long would it be before 
 she did so to his heart? He had avoided her he 
 alone up till then, and yet now, after this first con- 
 versation, he was convinced that of all gathered 
 there he alone knew the real Lilith Ormskirk as dis- 
 tinct from the superficial one known to the residue. 
 And to his mind recurred her former warning, 
 laughingly uttered: "Beware such unholy spells!" 
 With a strange intoxicating recollection did that 
 warning recur, together with the consciousness that 
 more than ever was it needed now. But as against 
 
 39 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 this was the protecting strength of a triple chain 
 armour. Life was only rendered interesting by such 
 interesting character studies as this. Oh, yes; that 
 was the solution that, and nothing more. 
 
 This was by no means the last talk they had they 
 two alone together. But it seemed to Laurence 
 Stanninghame that a warning note had been sounded, 
 and one of no uncertain nature. His tone became 
 more acrid, his sarcasm more biting, more envenomed. 
 One day Lilith said: 
 
 " Why do you dislike me so?" 
 
 He started at the question, thrown momentarily 
 off his guard. 
 
 " I don't dislike you," he answered shortly. 
 
 " Then why have you such a very poor opinion of 
 me? You never lose an opportunity of letting me see 
 that you have. What have I done? What have I 
 said that you should think so poorly of me?" 
 
 There was no spice of temper, of resentment, in 
 the tone. It was soft, and rather pleading. The 
 serious eyes were sweet and wistful. As his own 
 met their steady gaze, it seemed that a current of 
 magnetic thought flashed from mind to mind. 
 
 " I hold no such opinion," he said, after a few 
 moments of silence. " Perhaps I dread those ' unholy 
 spells,' thou sorceress. Ah! there goes the second 
 dinner-bell. Run away now, and make yourself more 
 beautiful than ever if possible." 
 
 A bright laugh flashed in the hazel eyes, and the 
 white teeth showed in a smile. 
 
 " I'll try since you wish it," she said over her 
 shoulder, as she turned away. 
 
 40 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE LAND OF PROMISE. 
 
 THE throb of the propeller has almost ceased; 
 faint, too, is the vibration of the slowed-down 
 engines. The Persian is gliding with well-nigh im- 
 perceptible motion through the smooth waters of 
 Table Bay. 
 
 It is a perfect morning, cloudless in its dazzling 
 splendour. In front, the huge Table Mountain rears 
 its massive wall, dwarfing the mud-town lying at its 
 base and the bristling masts of shipping, its great 
 line mirrored in the sheeny surface. Away in the 
 distance, the purple cones of the Hottentots Holland 
 mountains loom thirstily through a glimmer of sum- 
 mer haze. A fair scene indeed after three weeks of 
 endless sea and sky. 
 
 " And what are your first impressions of my native 
 land?" 
 
 Laurence turned. 
 
 " I was thinking less of the said land than of myself," 
 he answered. " I was thinking what potentialities 
 would lie between my first impressions of it and my 
 last." 
 
 Just a suspicion of gravity came over Lilith Orms- 
 kirk's face at the remark. 
 
 " And are you glad the voyage is at an end, now 
 that it is? " she went on. 
 
 " You know I am not. It was such a rest." 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 " Which I was everlastingly disturbing." 
 
 " By wreathing those unholy spells. Lilith, thou 
 sorceress, how long will it be before those talks of 
 ours are forgotten? A week, perhaps?" 
 
 " They will never be forgotten," she answered, her 
 eyes dreamy and serious. " But now, I must go below 
 and finish doing up my things. We shall be in dock 
 directly." 
 
 A great crowd is collected on the quay as the 
 steamer warps up, above which rise sunshades 
 coloured and coquettish, pith helmets and sweeping 
 puggarees, and more orthodox white " stove-pipes." 
 Then in the background, yellow-skinned Malays in 
 gaudy Oriental attire, parchment-faced Hottentots, 
 Mozambique blacks, and lighter-hued Kaffirs from the 
 Eastern frontier. The docks are piled with luggage, 
 for the privilege of carrying which and its multifold 
 owners Malay cab-drivers are uttering shrill and com- 
 peting yells. On board, people are bidding each other 
 good-bye or greeting those who have come to meet 
 them; and flitting among such groups, a mingled ex- 
 pression of alertness and anxiety on his countenance, 
 is here and there a steward, bent upon sounding up a 
 possibly elusive " tip,' : or refreshing an inconveniently 
 short memory. 
 
 Near the gangway Lilith Ormskirk was holding 
 quite a farewell court. Her " poodles," as Laurence 
 had satirically defined them, were crowding around 
 Swaynston at their head for a farewell pat. The 
 last, in the shape of Holmes and another, had taken 
 their sorrowful departure, and now a quick, furtive 
 look seemed to cross the smiling serenity of her face, 
 
 42 
 
THE LAND OF PROMISE. 
 
 a shade of wistfulness, of disappointment. Thus one 
 in the hurrying throng at the other side of the deck 
 read it. 
 
 " What a tail-wagging! " almost immediately spake 
 a voice at her side. 
 
 She turned. Decidedly the expression was one of 
 brightening. 
 
 " I thought you had gone had forgotten to say 
 good-bye," she said. 
 
 " I was waiting until the poodles had finally cleared. 
 Now, however, I have come to utter that not always 
 hateful word." 
 
 " Not in this instance? " 
 
 " Yes, distinctly. I have just heard there is to be 
 a special train made up we are in too late for the 
 regular mail-train, you know. So I shall leave for 
 Kimberley in about two or three hours' time." 
 
 Lilith looked disappointed. 
 
 " I thought you would have stayed here at least a 
 few days," she said. And then the friends who had 
 met her on board returned, and Laurence found him- 
 self introduced to three pretty girls fair-haired, blue- 
 eyed, well-dressed eke to a man tall, brown-faced, 
 loosely hung, apparently about thirty years of age 
 none of whose names he could quite succeed in catch- 
 ing, save that the latter was apostrophized as "George." 
 Then, after a commonplace or two, good-byes were 
 uttered and they separated Lilith and her party to 
 catch the train for Mowbray, her late fellow-passenger 
 to arrange for his own much longer journey. 
 
 Having the compartment to themselves, one of the 
 blue-eyed girls opened fire thus: 
 
 43 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 "Lilith, who is he?" 
 
 " Who? " 
 
 " He." 
 
 "Bless the child," laughed Lilith, "there were 
 about half a hundred he's." 
 
 " No, there was only one. Who is he? What 
 is he?" 
 
 " I don't know," replied Lilith, affecting ignorance 
 no longer. 
 
 " You don't know? After three weeks on board 
 ship together? Three whole weeks of ship life, and 
 you have the face to tell me you don't know anything 
 about him. After the way in which you said good- 
 bye to each other, too? Oh, I saw." 
 
 " Well, I don't know." 
 
 "Or care?" 
 
 " Chaff away, if it's any fun to you," answered 
 Lilith quite serenely, as the trio rippled into peals of 
 laughter. 
 
 " I liked the man, liked to talk to him on board 
 you are welcome to the admission but all I know is 
 that he is going to Johannesburg. We may never 
 see each other again." 
 
 " These English Johnnies who come out here, and 
 whom one knows nothing about, are now and again 
 slippery fish," gruffly spoke the brown-faced one. 
 " Watch it, Lilith." 
 
 " I thought this one looked as if he might be inter- 
 esting," said another of the blue-eyed girls. " Pity 
 he wasn't staying a day or two. We might have got 
 him out to the house and seen what he was made of." 
 
 44 
 
THE LAND OF PROMISE. 
 
 " Watch it," repeated George sententiously. 
 ' Watch it, Lilith." 
 
 Meanwhile, the object of this discussion and warn- 
 ing having resignedly " passed " the Customs at the 
 dock gates, was spinning townwards in one of the 
 innumerable hansoms. Sizing up the South African 
 metropolis, it gave him the idea of a mud city, just 
 dumped down wet and left to dry in the sun. Its 
 general aspect suggested the vagaries of some sportive 
 Titan, who, from the summit of the lofty rock wall 
 behind it, had amused himself, out of office hours, by 
 chucking down chunks of clay of all sorts and sizes, 
 trying how near he could " lob " them into the 
 position of streets and squares. 
 
 At that time the railway line ended at Kimberley 
 the distance thence to Johannesburg, close upon 
 three hundred miles, had to be done by stage. It 
 occurred to Laurence that, having a couple of hours 
 to spare, he had better look up the coach-agent and 
 secure a seat by wire. 
 
 The agent was not in his office. Laurence Stan- 
 ninghame, however, who knew the ways of similar 
 countries, albeit a new arrival in this, inquired for 
 that functionary's favourite bar. The reply was 
 prompt and accurate withal. In a few minutes, 
 seated on stools facing each other, he and the object of 
 his search were transacting business. 
 
 The latter did not seem entirely satisfactory. The 
 agent could not say when the earliest chance might 
 occur by regular coach. He might have to wait at 
 
 45 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 Kimberley well, it might be for days, or it might be 
 for ever. On the other hand, he might not even have 
 to wait at all. He could not tell. Even the people 
 at the other end could not say for certain. Laurence 
 began to lose patience. 
 
 " See here," he said somewhat testily. " I haven't 
 been long in your country, but that's about the only 
 reply I've been able to meet with to any question yet. 
 Tell me, as a matter of curiosity, is there any one 
 thing you are ever certain of out here? Just one." 
 
 The agent looked at him with faint amazement. 
 
 " There is one," he said; " just one." 
 
 " Well and that? " 
 
 " Death. That's always a dead cert. Let's liquor. 
 Put a name to it, skipper." 
 
 The special train consisted of a mail van and a 
 first-class carriage. There being only three or four 
 other travellers each had a compartment to himself, 
 an arrangement which met with Laurence Stanning- 
 hame's unfeigned approval. He did not want to talk 
 especially in a clattering, dusty railway carriage. 
 At intervals the passengers foregathered for meals at 
 some wayside buffet or accommodation house, meals 
 whose quality was in inverse ratio to the exuber- 
 ance of the prices charged therefor, then each would 
 return to his own box and smoke and read and sleep 
 away the little matter of seven hundred miles. 
 
 On they sped for hours and hours on through 
 sleepy Dutch villages, whose gardens and cultivation 
 made an oasis on the surrounding flats on, winding 
 in a slow ascent through the gloomy grandeur of the 
 
 46 
 
THE LAND OF PROMISE. 
 
 Hex River Poort, with its iron-bound heights rearing 
 in mighty masses from the level valley bottom. 
 Then it grew dark, and, the dim oil lamp being in- 
 adequate for reading purposes, Laurence went to 
 sleep. 
 
 " Afar in the desert I love to ride," 
 
 sang Pringle, the South African bard. 
 
 " Pringle was a liar, or a lunatic," quoth Laurence 
 Stanninghame, to whom the passage was familiar, on 
 opening his eyes next morning and looking around. 
 For the train was speeding when not slowing 
 through the identical desert of which Pringle sang; 
 that heart-breaking, dead-level, waterless, treeless belt 
 known as the Karroo. Not a human habitation in 
 sight, for hours at a stretch the same low table- 
 topped mountains rising hours ahead, and which 
 never seemed to get any closer, looking, moreover, in 
 the distant, mirage-effects, like vast slabs poised in 
 mid-air and resting on nothing. At long intervals 
 a group of foul and tumble-down Hottentot huts, with 
 their squalid inhabitants lean curs and ape-like men; 
 their raison d'etre, in the shape of a flock of prema- 
 turely aged and disappointed-looking goats, trying all 
 they are worth to extract sustenance from the red shaly 
 earth and its sparse growth of coarse bush-like herbage. 
 Looking out on this horrible desert, the eye and the 
 mind alike grow weary, and the latter starts specu- 
 lating in a shuddering sort of a way as to how the 
 deuce anything human can find it in its heart to exist 
 in such a place. Yet though an awful desert in time 
 of drought it is not always so. 
 
 47 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 But gazing forth upon the surrounding waste, 
 Laurence was able to read into it a certain charm 
 the charm of freedom, of boundlessness, so vividly 
 standing out in contrast to his own cramped, narrow, 
 shut-in life. All the changed conditions the wild- 
 ness, the solitude, the flaming and unclouded sun 
 were as a new awakening to life. The current of a 
 certain joy of living, long since sluggish, congealed, 
 now coursed swiftly and without hinderance through 
 his being. 
 
 Now through all those hours of tedious travelling 
 in the flaming glow of day, or in the still, cool watches 
 of the night, he had with him a recollection Lilith 
 Ormskirk's face haunted him. Those eyes seemed to 
 follow him sweet, serious; or again mirthful, flash- 
 ing from out their dark fringe of lashes, but ever 
 entrancing, ever inviting. Her whole personality, in 
 fact, seemed to pervade his mind, warring for sole 
 possession, to the exclusion of all other thought, . all 
 other consideration. Into the conflict his own mind 
 entered with a zest. It was a psychological struggle 
 which appealed to him, and that thoroughly. She 
 should not, by her witchery, take entire possession. 
 Yet the recollection of her was so potent that at 
 length he ceased to strive against it. He gave way, 
 abandoned himself contentedly, voluptuously to its 
 sway, even aiding it in the pictures it conjured up. 
 Now he saw her, as he had first passed her, day after 
 day on board ship, with indifference, with faintly 
 ironical curiosity; again, as when they had first 
 begun to talk together; and yet again, when he had 
 found himself resorting to all manner of cowardly 
 
 48 
 
THE LAND OF PROMISE. 
 
 mental expedients to persuade himself that he did 
 not revel in her dangerously winning attractiveness, 
 and sweet sympathetic converse. In the monotonous 
 three-four time beat of the wheels he could conjure 
 up her voice even the colonial trick of clipping the 
 final " r " in words ending with that letter as to 
 which he had often rallied her, while secretly liking 
 it for this, like a tpuch of the brogue, can be win- 
 some enough when uttered by pretty lips. Now all 
 these reflections could not but be profitless, possibly 
 dangerous, yet they had this advantage they helped 
 to kill time, and that during a thirty-odd- 
 hour journey across the Karroo. Well, it is an 
 advantage ! 
 
 On through the long, hot day, and still that 
 memory was with him. The solitude, the stillness, 
 the mile after mile over the desolate and barren 
 waste, the novelty of the scene, the monotonous 
 rattle of the wheels all went to perpetuate it. 
 Then the sun drew down to the horizon, and the 
 departing glow, striking upon the red soil, painted 
 the latter the colour of blood, making up an extraor- 
 dinarily vivid study in red and blue. Overhead a 
 cloudless sky, the horizon all aflame, and the whole 
 earth, far as the eye could reach, steeped in the 
 richest purple red. Laurence fell fast asleep. 
 
 He dreamed they were steaming into Charing 
 Cross Station. Lilith was waiting to meet him. He 
 swore, in his dream, because they had halted on the 
 railway bridge too long to take the tickets. Then 
 he awoke. They were steaming slowly into a ter- 
 minus, amid the familiar flashing of lamps and the 
 
 49 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 rumbling of porters' trucks. But it was not Charing 
 Cross, it was Kimberley. 
 
 Not long did it take him to collect his scanty bag- 
 gage and fling it into a " cab," otherwise an open, 
 two-seated Cape cart. Hardly had he taken his seat 
 than the driver uttered a war-whoop, and, with a jerk 
 that nearly sent its passenger somersaulting into 
 the road, the concern started off as hard as its eight 
 legs and two wheels could carry it. 
 
 The night was dark, the streets guiltless of light- 
 ing. As the trap zigzagged furiously from one side 
 of the way to the other, now poised on one wheel, 
 now leaping bodily into the air as it charged through 
 a deep hole or rut, it was a comfort to the said passen- 
 ger to reflect that the road being feet deep in sand one 
 was bound to fall soft anyhow. Yet, candidly, he 
 rather enjoyed it. After thirty-three hours in a South 
 African " Flying Watkin " even this spurious excite- 
 ment was welcome. 
 
 They shaved corners, always on one wheel, some- 
 times even scraping the corners of houses, and causing 
 those pedestrians in their line of flight to skip like 
 young unicorns. Then, recovering, the startled way- 
 farers would hurl their choicest blessings after the 
 cab. To these, the madcap driver would reply with 
 a shrill and fiendish yell, belabouring his frantic 
 cattle with a view to attempting fresh feats. They 
 succeeded. It only wanted a bullock-waggon coming 
 down the street to afford them the opportunity. The 
 bullock-waggon came. Then a dead, dull scrunch 
 an awful shock and the cab was at a standstill. 
 The waggon people opened their safety-valves and 
 
 50 
 
THE LAND OF PROMISE. 
 
 let off a fearful blast of profanity; the cab-driver 
 replied in suitable and feeling terms, then backed 
 clear of the wreck and whipped on. 
 
 Vastly amused by this lively experience, Laurence 
 still ventured to expostulate, mildly, and as a matter 
 of form. But he got no more change out of his 
 present Jehu than Horace Greeley did of Hank 
 Monk. The reply, accompanied by a jovial guffaw, 
 was: 
 
 " All right, mister. You sit tight, and I'll fetch you 
 through. Which hotel did you say? " 
 
 Laurence refreshed his memory and swaying, 
 jerking, pounding, into ruts and holes, the chariot drew 
 up like a hurricane blast before quite an imposing- 
 looking building at the corner of the Market Square. 
 Having paid off the lunatic of the whip and stood 
 him a drink, Laurence engaged a room, and won- 
 dered what the deuce he should do with himself 
 if delayed here any time. For the glimpse he had 
 obtained of the place seemed not inviting. The same 
 crowded bars, the same roaring racket, the same dust 
 yea, even the same thirst. He had seen it all 
 before in other parts of the world. 
 
 He was destined to wonder still more, and wearily, 
 what he should do with himself; for nearly a week 
 went by before he could secure a seat in the coach. 
 A great depression came upon him, begotten of the 
 heat and the drowsiness and the dust, as day after 
 day seemed to bring with it no emancipation from 
 the wind-swept, tin-built town, dumped down on its 
 surrounding flat and sad-looking desert waste. Yet 
 nothing akin to homesickness was there in his depres- 
 
 51 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 sion. He wanted to get onward, not to return. He 
 was bored and in the blues. Yet, as he looked back, 
 the feeling which predominated was that of freedom 
 of having a certain measure of life and its prospects 
 before him. Stay, though. His thoughts would, at 
 times, travel backward, and that in spite of himself, 
 and they would land him with a lingering, though 
 unacknowledged, regretfulness, on the deck of the 
 Persian. Well, that was only an episode. It had 
 passed away out of his life, and it was as well that 
 it had. 
 
 But had it? 
 
 At last, to our wayfarer's unspeakable joy, deliver- 
 ance came. It had been Laurence's lot to travel in 
 far worse conveyances than the regular coaches which 
 at that time performed the journey between Kimber- 
 ley and Johannesburg, a distance of close upon three 
 hundred miles; consequently, although not among 
 the fortunate ones who had secured a corner seat, he 
 managed to make himself as comfortable as any 
 traveller in comparatively outlandish regions has a 
 right to expect. His fellow-passengers consisted, for 
 the most part, of mechanics of the better sort and a 
 loquacious Jew not at all a bad sort of fellow in 
 conversation with whom he would now and then 
 beguile the weariness of the route. And it was weary. 
 The flat sameness of the treeless plains, as mile after 
 mile brought no change; the same stony kopjes; 
 the same deserted and tumble-down mining struc- 
 tures; the same God-forsaken-looking Dutch home- 
 steads, whose owners had apparently taken on the 
 
 52 
 
THE LAND OF PROMISE. 
 
 triste hopelessness of their surroundings; the same 
 miserable wayside inns, where leathery goat-flesh 
 and bones and rice, painted yellow, were dispensed 
 under the title of breakfast and dinner, what time the 
 coach halted to change horses, and even then only 
 served up when the driver was frantically vociferating, 
 " All aboard! " Thus they journeyed day and night, 
 allowing, perhaps, three hours, or four at the outside, 
 for sleep on a bed. But the latter proved an in- 
 stitution of dubious beneficence, because of its far 
 from dubious animation; the said "animation" 
 scorning blithely and imperviously accumulations of 
 insect powder, reaching back into the dim past, left 
 there and added to by a countless procession of 
 tortured travellers. Howbeit, of these and like dis- 
 comforts are such journeyings productive, wherefore 
 they are scarcely to be reckoned as worthy of note. 
 
 53 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 KING SCRIP. 
 
 " HALLO, Stanninghame ! And so, here you are? " 
 
 " Here I am, Rainsford, as you say ; and from what 
 I have heard in process of getting here, I'm afraid 
 I have got here a day too late." 
 
 The other laughed, as they shook hands. He was 
 a man of Laurence's own age, straight and active, 
 and his bronzed face wore that alert, eager look which 
 was noticeable upon the faces of most of the fortune- 
 seekers, for of such was the bulk of the inhabitants 
 of Johannesburg at that time. 
 
 " You never can tell," he rejoined. " Things are 
 a bit slack now, because of this infernal drought; but 
 a good sousing rain, or a few smart thunder showers, 
 would fill all the dams and set the batteries working 
 again harder than ever. It's the rainy time of year, 
 too." 
 
 It was the morning after Laurence's arrival in 
 Johannesburg, and, while sallying forth to find Rains- 
 ford, the two had met on Commissioner Street. The 
 brand-new gold-town looked anything but what it 
 was. It did not look new. In spite of the general 
 unfinishedness of the streets and sidewalks, the latter 
 largely conspicuous by their absence; in spite of the 
 
 54 
 
KING SCRIP. 
 
 predominance of scaffolding poles and half-reared 
 structures of red brick; in spite of the countless 
 tenements of corrugated iron, and the tall chimneys 
 of mining works which came in here where steeples 
 would have arisen in an ordinary town; in spite of 
 all this there was a battered and weather-beaten 
 aspect about the place which made it look centuries 
 old. Great pillars of dust towered skywards, then 
 dispersing, whirled in mighty wreaths over the shining 
 iron roofs, to fall hissing back into the red-powdery 
 streets whence they arose, choking with pungent par- 
 ticles the throats, eyes, and ears of the eager, busy, 
 speculative, acquisitive crowd, who had flocked hither 
 like wasps to a jar of beer and honey. And to many, 
 indeed, it was destined to prove just such a trap. 
 
 " Well, what do you advise, Rainsford? " said 
 Laurence, after some more talk about the Rand and 
 its prospects. 
 
 " Wait a day or two. You don't want to buy in a 
 falling market. There are several good companies to 
 put into, but things haven't touched bottom yet. 
 When they do and just begin to rise, then buy in. 
 Meanwhile lie low." 
 
 " You speak like a book, Rainsford," said one of 
 two men who joined them at that moment. " There's 
 a capital company now whose shares are on the rise 
 again. Couldn't do better than take two or three 
 hundred of them. What do you say? " 
 
 " Name? " 
 
 " Bai-praatfonteins." 
 
 "I'll watch it!" said Rainsford, with an emphatic 
 and negative shake of the head. 
 
 55 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 " I say, you don't want a couple of building stands? 
 They'll treble their value in as many weeks. Going 
 cheap as dirt now." 
 
 " Not taking any, Rankin," was the uncompromis- 
 ing reply, for Rainsford knew something about those 
 building stands. 
 
 " You're making a mistake. Bless my soul, if only 
 I had the money to spare, I'd take them at double 
 myself. I'm only agent in the matter, though. I can't 
 do any business at all with you fellows this morning." 
 
 All this was said in the most genial and good- 
 humoured tone imaginable. The speaker was a 
 spare, straight, neatly dressed individual of middle 
 age. His face was of a dark bronze hue, lit up 
 by a pair of keen black eyes, and his beard was pre- 
 maturely gray, almost white. The expression of 
 keenness on a deal was not characteristic of him 
 alone. Everyone wore it in those days. 
 
 " That was a great old shot you did on me, Rains- 
 ford, with those Verneuk Draais," cut in the other 
 man, in a jolly, hail-the-maintop sort of voice. He 
 was a tall, fair-haired, athletic fellow, whose condition 
 looked as hard as nails, "/a, it just was." 
 
 " Well, I'll buy them back if you like, Wheeler." 
 
 "How much?" 
 
 " Sixteen and a half." 
 
 A roar of good-humoured derision went up from 
 the other. 
 
 " Sixteen and a half? And I took them over from 
 you at twenty-eight. Sixteen and a half? " 
 
 " Well, are you taking? " said Rainsford. 
 
 " Dead off," returned the other. 
 56 
 
KING SCRIP. 
 
 "What do you say, you fellows?" cut in the first 
 who had spoken. " A little ' smile ' of something 
 before lunch won't do us any harm. Eh? what do 
 you say? " 
 
 "/a, that's so. Come along," sung out the tall man, 
 spinning round upon one heel and heading for the 
 Exchange bar. 
 
 " There's nothing like an Angostura to give one 
 an appetite," said the dark man to Laurence as they 
 walked along. " It gives tone to the system. An- 
 gostura with a little drop of gin in it." 
 
 " With a little drop of gin in it? " repeated Wheeler, 
 with a derisive roar. " That's where the tone to the 
 system comes in eh, Rankin?" 
 
 "Only just out from home, are you?" said the 
 latter to Laurence as, having named their respective 
 *' poisons," the original four, with two or three others 
 who had joined them en route, stood absorbing the 
 same. "Heavens! did you ever hear such a row in 
 your life?" he went on, as through the open door 
 connecting with the Exchange came the frantic bawl- 
 ing of brokers, competing wildly for Blazesfonteins, 
 and Verneuk Laagtes, and Hellpoorts, and Vulture's 
 Vleis, and Madeiras, and Marshes, and up and down 
 the whole gamut. And there in the crowd lining the 
 bar, and in the crowd outside the Exchange, and in 
 the crowd upon Market Square, where the auctioneers 
 stood, well-nigh elbow to elbow, bellowing from their 
 tubs, and where you might bid for anything from a 
 building stand or a pair of horses to a concertina or a 
 pair of stays everywhere the talk was the same, and 
 it was of scrip. King Scrip ruled the roost. 
 
 57 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 Just then, however, the subjects of King Scrip were 
 undergoing rather an anxious time, for the drought 
 was becoming serious. Dams being empty, batteries 
 could not work; result, scrip drawing within alarming 
 distance of touching its own value paper, to wit. 
 And as the dams became more empty, those with an 
 " n " appended became more and more full yea, 
 exceeding full-bodied, and both loud and deep. In 
 the churches they were praying for rain, praying 
 hard, for rain meant money; and in the bars they 
 were " cussing " for lack of it, " cussing " hard, on 
 the same principle. Then the rain came, and in the 
 churches they sang " Te Deum " ; and in the bars they 
 drove a humming trade in champagne, where " John 
 Walker " had been good enough before. Up went 
 scrip, and Laurence Stanninghame, having judiciously 
 invested his little all, cleared about three hundred 
 pounds in as many days. Things began to look 
 rosy. 
 
 By this time, too, Laurence got sick of hanging 
 around the Exchange and talking scrip. He had no 
 turn that way, wherefore now he was glad enough to 
 leave his affairs in the hands of Rainsford, who, being 
 an inhabitant of Johannesburg, was, of course, a 
 broker; and, having picked up a very decent No. 12 
 bore on one of the open-air sales aforesaid, laid him- 
 self out to see what sport was obtainable in the sur- 
 rounding country. This was not much, but it 
 involved many a hard and long tramp ; and the Trans- 
 vaal atmosphere is brisk and exhilarating, with the 
 result that eye and brain grew clearer, and his condi- 
 tion became as hard as nails. And as there is nothing 
 
 58 
 
KING SCRIP. 
 
 like a thoroughly healthy condition of body, combined 
 with an equally healthy mental state, in this instance 
 the elation produced by an intensely longed-for meas- 
 ure of success, Laurence began to realize a certain 
 pleasure in living, a sensation to which he had been a 
 stranger for many a long year, and which, assuredly, 
 he had never expected to experience again. 
 
 For the market still continued to hum, and by dint 
 of judicious investments and quick turnings over, 
 Laurence had more than doubled the original amount 
 he had put in. At this rate the moderate wealth to 
 which he aspired would soon be his. 
 
 And now, with the ball of success apparently at his 
 feet, so unsatisfying, so ironical are the conditions of 
 life, that he was conscious of a something to damp 
 the anticipatory delights of that success. Those long, 
 solitary tramps over the veldt after scant coveys of 
 partridge, or the stealthy stalk of wild duck at some 
 vlei, were very conducive to introspection ; that wealth 
 which he imagined within his grasp did not now look 
 so all-in-all sufficing, and yet he had deemed it the 
 end and all-in-all of life. Even with his past experi- 
 ence the depressing, deteriorating effects, mental 
 and physical, of years of poverty in its most squalid 
 and depressing form, " shabby-genteel " poverty he 
 realized that even the possession of wealth might 
 leave something to be desired. In fact, he became 
 conscious of an unsatisfied longing, by no means 
 vague, but very real, which came to him at his time 
 of life with a sort of dismayed surprise. He would 
 give up these solitary wanderings in search of sport. 
 The sport was of a poor description, and the intervals 
 
 59 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 between were too long. He had too much time to 
 think. He would knock around the town a little for 
 a change, and talk to fellows. 
 
 One morning he was walking down the street with 
 Rainsford and Wheeler, the latter, who was an up- 
 country hunter, busy, in pursuance of the prevailing 
 spirit, in trying to trade him sundry pairs of big game, 
 horns, and other trophies, when he heard his name 
 called in a very well remembered voice. Turning, he 
 beheld Holmes. 
 
 " Stanninghame, old chap, I am glad to run against 
 you again ! " cried the latter, advancing upon him 
 with outstretched hand. 
 
 " I begin to believe you are," answered Laurence 
 genially, with a comical glance at the other's beaming 
 countenance. " Why, you actually have a look that 
 way. When did you get here? " 
 
 " By last night's coach. And, I say," trying to 
 look wondrously mysterious and knowing, " who do 
 you think travelled up by it too? " 
 
 " I can't even venture the feeblest guess." 
 
 "Can't you?" chuckled Holmes. "What about 
 Miss Ormskirk, eh? How's that?" 
 
 " So? Now I remember, she did say something 
 about a possibility of coming up here before long," 
 replied Laurence equably, while conscious that the 
 announcement had convulsed his inner being with a 
 strange, sweet thrill. For it came so aptly upon his 
 meditations of late. The one unsatisfied longing 
 her presence. And now even that was to be fulfilled. 
 
 " You don't seem to take it over enthusiastically, 
 Stanninghame," went on Holmes. " And you and 
 
 60 
 
KING SCRIP. 
 
 she were rather thick towards the end of the voyage," 
 he added mischievously. 
 
 " Did you ever know me enthuse about anything, 
 Holmes? But it's about lunch time; let's go and 
 get some, and you can tell me what you have been 
 doing since we landed from the old Persian, and what 
 the deuce has brought you up here." 
 
 This was all very friendly and plausible; but before 
 they had been seated many minutes at lunch in a 
 conveniently adjacent restaurant Holmes was dis- 
 coursing singularly little upon his doings spread over 
 the weeks which had elapsed since he had landed, 
 but most volubly upon his recent coach journey con- 
 gested within a space of three days to which topic 
 he was tactfully moved by his audience of one and 
 also by his own inclination, as will hereinafter appear. 
 
 " Was Miss Ormskirk travelling alone, did you say, 
 Holmes?" queried Laurence, in initiation of his deft 
 scheme for " drawing " the other. 
 
 " Not much. There was a big parchment-faced 
 Johnny with her. He scowled at me like sin when 
 we were introduced was inclined to be beastly rude 
 in fact, until he saw that I er that I talked most 
 to the other; then he got quite affable." 
 
 " To the other? What other? Out with it, Holmes," 
 said Laurence, with a half smile at his friend's thinly 
 veiled embarrassment. 
 
 " Oh, there was another girl in the crowd Miss 
 Falkner deuced pretty girl, too. The sulky chappie 
 was her brother." 
 
 "Whose brother? Miss Ormskirk's?" said Lau- 
 rence innocently. 
 
 61 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 " No; the blue-eyed one's. At least they both 
 called him George." 
 
 " Yes. I remember they came on board the Per- 
 sian. You had landed already, I think. From your 
 description I recognize them. So they are up here? 
 Where are they staying? " 
 
 " At that outlying place where the coach first begins 
 to get among houses. I can't remember the name. 
 There's a biggish pub, you know, and a lot of houses." 
 
 " Booyseus?" 
 
 " That was it; Booyseus. They asked me to go 
 and see them. You'd better come along too, Stan- 
 ninghame. I say, d' you think it 'd be too soon if we 
 went to-morrow, eh? Sort of excuse to ask if they'd 
 recovered from the journey eh?" 
 
 " Was George so very exhausted then? " 
 
 "Oh, hang your chaff, Stanninghame! What do 
 you think? You're an older chap than I am, and 
 know more about these things. Would it be too soon 
 if we went to-morrow?" 
 
 " Be comforted, Holmes. As far as it rests with 
 me, you shall behold your forget-me-not-eyed charmer 
 to-morrow if she's at home." 
 
 The conversation worked round to the inevitable 
 topic, King Scrip. Holmes was fired with eagerness 
 when in his unenthusiastic way the other began to 
 tell of such successes as he had already scored. For 
 he, too, had come up there to take advantage of the 
 boom. He was eager to rush out there and then to 
 buy shares. Nothing would satisfy him but that 
 Laurence must take him round and introduce him to 
 Rainsford on the spot. 
 
 62 
 
KING SCRIP. 
 
 But on the way to that worthy's office something 
 happened. Turning into Commissioner Street, they 
 ran right into a party of four. Result exclamations 
 of astonishment, of recognition, greetings from both 
 sides. 
 
 Three of the quartette we have already made the 
 acquaintance of. The fourth, Mrs. Falkner, a good- 
 looking middle-aged lady, was the aunt of the other 
 three, and with her they were staying. 
 
 " I've heard of you, Mr. Stanninghame," said this 
 one, when introductions had been effected. " I hope 
 you have made a success of Johannesburg so far. 
 Everybody turns up here. I can hardly come up to 
 the camp we used to call it that in the old days. I 
 was among the first up here, you know, and it's diffi- 
 cult to get into the way of calling it the town I can 
 hardly come up here, I was saying, without meeting 
 some one or other I had known elsewhere." 
 
 " Yes, it's an astonishing place, Mrs. Falkner," 
 answered Laurence. " Only bare veldt but a very 
 few years ago, now a population of forty thousand 
 mostly brokers." 
 
 She laughed, and Lilith cut in: 
 
 " I thought you were going to adopt the Carlylean 
 definition of the people of England, Mr. Stanning- 
 hame." 
 
 " Oh, that '11 come in time. I only trust I may not 
 hold on too long to come under its lash." 
 
 " Let us hope none of us will," said Mrs. Falkner. 
 " Oh, dear, we are all dreadfully reckless, I fear. We 
 are nothing but gamblers up here. Have you caught 
 the contagion too, Mr. Stanninghame? " 
 
 63 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 " I'm afraid so," he answered, thinking how, even 
 among the softer sex here, King Scrip bore the prin- 
 cipal sway. 
 
 He was thinking of something else at the same 
 time. Lilith was looking even more sweet, more 
 bewitchingly attractive than when last he had seen 
 her. There was a warm seductive glow of health in 
 her dark brilliant beauty, a winsomeness in her 
 simple, tasteful attire the cool easy-fitting blouse 
 and skirt in a soft harmony of cream colour and light 
 gray, and the plain, wide-brimmed straw hat of the 
 " sailor " kind which made, to his eyes, an irresistibly 
 entrancing picture. 
 
 She, no less than himself, was comparing notes as 
 two people will who have been apart for a space, and 
 have thought much of each other in the interim. He, 
 too, was improved in appearance. The fine climate, 
 the open-air life had lent a deeper bronze to his face 
 and a clearness to his eyes even as an emancipation 
 from sordid cares, together with a present modicum 
 of success and a prospect of further in the future, had 
 imparted a certain stamp of serenity to his expression 
 which was not there before. " Air, freedom, life's 
 healthier side are good success is good all good 
 things are good behold their result," was Lilith's 
 inner verdict as the summing up of this inspection. 
 
 Now George Falkner's efforts at cordiality were 
 about as effective as the demeanour of a crusty mas- 
 tiff encountering another of his kind well within sweep 
 of his owner's lash. His jealous soul had noted the 
 glance exchanged between his cousin and Laurence 
 Stanninghame the responsive glance which for a 
 
 64 
 
KING SCRIP. 
 
 brief second would not be disguised; the great and 
 deep-reaching gladness, which shone in both pairs of 
 eyes as a result of this meeting. He stood gloomy 
 and grim, while the two were talking together, and 
 then rather brusquely and to the disgust of Holmes, 
 who was discoursing eagerly with pretty Mabel Falk- 
 ner he reminded his aunt that they were due to call 
 at So-and-So's, and were far behind their time. 
 
 " Ah, yes, I was forgetting. Well, good-bye, Mr. 
 Stanninghame. I hope you will come and see us. 
 It is nothing of a walk out to Booyseus, and besides, 
 there are several omnibuses in the course of the day. 
 Mind you come too, Mr. Holmes. Good-bye." 
 
 And the four resumed their way, and so did our two. 
 
 " Jolly, genial old party that Mrs. Falkner," pro- 
 nounced Holmes, half turning, slyly, to sneak a last 
 glance after the blue-eyed and receding Mabel. 
 
 " Spare my susceptibilities, Holmes, even in your 
 exuberance. That ' old party/ as you so unfeelingly 
 define her, cannot own to more than two or three 
 years seniority over my respectable self four at the 
 outside," said Laurence maliciously. 
 
 " Oh, go along with you, old chap," retorted 
 Holmes, yet conscious of feeling just a trifle foolish. 
 " But, I say," eagerly, " can we still go and look them 
 up so soon as to-morrow, eh? " 
 
 " Don't let that misgiving interfere with your 
 beauty sleep, Holmes," was the reply, dashed with 
 a touch of good-humoured impatience. " People are 
 not so beastly ceremonious over here." 
 
 " I've brought you another sheep to shear, Rains- 
 fix 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 ford," said Laurence, as they entered the broker's 
 office. " Don't clip him any closer than you did me, 
 though he's dying to set up as a millionaire on the 
 spot." 
 
 And then, having effected this introduction, he left 
 the pair to do business or not, as the case might be, 
 and strolled back to his own quarters. 
 
 What was this marvellous metamorphosis which 
 had come upon him, flooding his life with golden 
 waves of sweetness and of light? Now that he had 
 beheld Lilith once more, he realized what entire hold 
 she had taken of his thoughts since they two had 
 parted on the deck of the Persian. It was a certainty 
 there was no getting away from but a certainty now 
 which he was not in the least desirous of getting away 
 from. He had beheld her once more. Their meet- 
 ing had been of the briefest, their interchange of re- 
 marks of the most commonplace, every-day nature. 
 Yet he had beheld her, had listened to the sound of 
 her voice, had looked into her eyes. And the glance 
 of those sweet eyes had been responsive; and his ear 
 could detect a subtile note in the tones of her voice. 
 Sweet Lilith! the spells she had begun to wreathe 
 around him, so unconsciously to herself, so uncon- 
 sciously to him, when first they talked together, were 
 drawn, woven, more thoroughly now. And in his 
 strange, new revivification the return of strength 
 and health and spirits he rejoiced that it was so, and 
 laughed, and defied circumstances, and Fate and the 
 Future. 
 
 66 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " PIRATE " HAZON. 
 
 IF the population of Johannesburg devoted its days 
 to doing konza to King Scrip, it devoted its nights 
 to amusing itself. There was an enterprising 
 theatrical company and a lively circus. There was 
 a menagerie, where an exceedingly fine young woman 
 was wont nightly to place her head within a lion's 
 mouth for the delectation, and to the enthusiastic 
 admiration of Judaea, and all the region round about. 
 There were smoking-concerts galore more or less 
 good of their kind and, failing sporadic forms of 
 pastime, there were numerous bars and barmaids, 
 all of which counted for something in the relaxation 
 of the forty thousand inhabitants of Johannesburg 
 mostly brokers. We are forgetting. There were 
 other phases of nocturnal excitement, more or less 
 of a stimulating nature frequent rows, to wit, cul- 
 minating in a nasty rough-and-tumble, and now and 
 then a startling and barbarous murder. 
 
 Now, to Laurence Stanninghame not any of the 
 above forms of diversion held out the slightest 
 possible attractiveness. The theatrical show struck 
 him as third-rate, and as for circuses and menageries, 
 he supposed they had been good fun when he was a 
 child. He did not care twopence about the. pleasures 
 of the bar unless he wanted a drink, and for bar- 
 
 67 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 maids and their allurements less than nothing. So 
 having already, with Rainsford or Wheeler, and seven 
 other spirits more wicked than themselves, gone the 
 round three or four times, just to see what there was 
 to be seen, and found that not much, he had sub- 
 sided into a good bit of a stay-at-home. A pipe, a 
 newspaper or book, and bed, would be his evening 
 program normally, that is; for now and then he 
 would stroll out to Booyseus. But of that more anon. 
 
 The hotel at which he had taken up his quarters 
 was rather a quiet one, and frequented by quiet 
 people. One set of rooms, among which was his, 
 opened upon a stocp, which fronted a yard, which 
 opened upon the street. Here of an evening he 
 would drag a chair out upon the stoep and smoke 
 and read, or occasionally chat with some fellow- 
 sojourner in the house. 
 
 One evening he was seated thus alone. Holmes, 
 who had taken up his quarters at the same hotel, was 
 out, as usual. We say as usual because Holmes 
 seldom stayed in at night. Holmes was young, 
 and for him the " attractions " we have striven to 
 enumerate above, and others which we have not, 
 were attractions. He liked to go the round. He 
 liked to see all there was to be seen. Well, he 
 saw it. 
 
 One evening Laurence, seated thus alone, became 
 aware that another man was dragging a chair out 
 upon the stoep, intending, like himself, to take the 
 air. Looking up, he saw that it was the man to 
 whom nobody ever seemed to talk, beyond ex- 
 changing the time of day, and that in the most 
 
 68 
 
"PIRATE" HAZON. 
 
 curt and perfunctory fashion. He had noticed, 
 further, that this individual seemed no more anxious 
 to converse with other people than they were to 
 converse with him. He himself had never got 
 beyond this stage with him, although on easy and 
 friendly terms with the other people staying in the 
 house. 
 
 Yet the man had awakened in him a strange 
 interest, a curiosity that was almost acute; but 
 beyond the fact that his name was Hazon, and the 
 darkly veiled hints on the part of those who alluded 
 to the subject, that he was a ruffian of the deepest 
 dye, Laurence could learn nothing about him. He 
 noted, however, that if the man seemed disliked, he 
 seemed about equally feared. 
 
 This Hazon was, in truth, somewhat of a remark- 
 able individual. He was of powerful build, standing 
 about five feet nine. He had a strong, good-looking 
 face, the lower part hidden in a dark beard, and 
 his eyes were black, piercing, and rather deep set. 
 The bronze hue of his complexion, and of the sinewy 
 hands, seemed to tell of a life of hardness and 
 adventure; and the square jaw and straight, piercing 
 glance was that of a man who, when roused, 
 would prove a resolute, relentless, and a most danger- 
 ous enemy. In repose the face wore a placidity 
 which was almost that of melancholy. 
 
 In trying to estimate his years, Laurence owned 
 himself puzzled again and again. He might be about 
 his own age or he might be a great deal older, that 
 is, anything from forty to sixty. But whatever his 
 age, whatever his past, the man was always the same, 
 
 6 9 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 dark, self-possessed, coldly reticent, inscrutable, some- 
 what of an awe-inspiring personality. 
 
 The nature of his business, too, was no more open 
 than was his past history. He had been some months 
 in his present quarters, yet was not known to be 
 doing anything in scrip to any appreciable extent. 
 The boom, the one engrossing idea in the minds of 
 all alike, seemed to hold no fascination for Hazon. 
 To him it was a matter of absolutely no importance. 
 What the deuce, then, was he there for? His im- 
 penetrable reserve, his out-of-the-common and strik- 
 ing personality, his rather sinister expression, had 
 earned for him a nick-name. He was known all over 
 the Rand as " Pirate " Hazon, or more commonly 
 " The Pirate," because, declared the Rand, he looked 
 like one, and at any rate ought to be hanged for one, 
 to make sure. 
 
 Nobody, however, cared to use the epithet within 
 his hearing. People were afraid of him. One day 
 in the street a tough, swaggering bully, fearless in the 
 consciousness of his powers as a first-class boxer, 
 lurched up against him, deliberately, and with offensive 
 intent. Those who witnessed the act stood by for the 
 phase of excitement dearest of all to their hearts, a 
 row. There was that in Hazon's look which told 
 they were not to be disappointed. 
 
 "English manners?" he queried, in cutting, con- 
 temptuous tone. 
 
 " I'll teach you some," rejoined the fellow promptly. 
 And without more ado he dashed out a terrific left- 
 hander, which the other just escaped receiving full in 
 the eye, but not entirely as to the cheekbone. 
 
 70 
 
"PIRATE" HAZON. 
 
 Hazon did not hit back, but what followed amazed 
 even the bystanders. It was like the spring of an 
 animal of a leopard or a bull-dog combining the 
 lightning swiftness of the one with the grim, fell 
 ferocity of purpose of the other. The powerful rowdy 
 was lying upon his back in the red dust, swinging 
 flail-like blows into empty air, and upon him, in 
 leopard-like crouch, -pressing him to the earth, 
 the man whom he had so wantonly attacked. And 
 his throat was compressed in those brown, lean, 
 muscular fingers, as in a claw of steel. It was horri- 
 ble. His eyes were starting from his head; his face 
 grew blue, then black; his swollen tongue protruded 
 hideously. His struggles were terrific, yet, powerful 
 of frame as he was, he seemed like a child in the grasp 
 of a panther. 
 
 A shout of dismay, of warning, broke from the 
 spectators, some of whom sprang forward to separate 
 the pair. But there was something so awful in the 
 expression of Hazon's countenance, in the glare of 
 the coal-black eyes, in the drawn-in brows and livid 
 horror of fiendish wrath, that even they stopped short. 
 It was, as they said afterwards, as though they 
 had looked into the blasting countenance of 'a 
 devil. 
 
 " Leave go! " they cried. " For God's sake, leave 
 go! You're killing the man. He'll be dead in a 
 second longer." 
 
 Hazon relaxed his grasp, and stood upright. 
 Beyond a slight heaving of the chest attendant upon 
 his exertion, he seemed as cool and collected as 
 though nothing had happened. 
 
 71 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 " I believe you're right," he said, turning away. 
 " Well, he isn't that yet." 
 
 The attention of the onlookers was concentrated 
 on the prostrate bully, to restore whom a doctor was 
 promptly sent for from the most likely bar, for it 
 was midday. But all were constrained to allow that 
 the fellow had only got what he deserved, which con- 
 census of opinion may or may not have been due to 
 the fact that he was, if anything, a trifle more unpopu- 
 lar than Hazon himself. 
 
 Now among those who had witnessed this scene 
 from first to last was Laurence Stanninghame. Not 
 among those who would have interfered oh, no for 
 did he not hold it a primary tenet never, on any pre- 
 text, to interfere in what did not concern him? nor did 
 this principle in those days involve any effort to 
 keep, all impulse to violate it being long since dead. 
 Moreover, if the last held good of the badly damaged 
 bully, society at large could not but be the gainer, 
 since it was clear that he was a fit representative of 
 a class which is utterly destitute of any redeeming 
 point which should go to justify its unspeakably 
 vicious, useless, and rather dangerous existence. 
 
 This incident, while enhancing the respect in which 
 Hazon was held, in no sense tended to lessen his un- 
 popularity, and indeed at that time nobody had a good 
 word to say for him. Either they said nothing, and 
 looked the more, or they said a word that was not 
 good oh, no, not good. 
 
 Now in spite of all such ill repute, possibly by 
 reason of it, his temperament being what it was, 
 Laurence felt drawn towards this mysterious person- 
 
 72 
 
"PIRATE" HAZON. 
 
 age, for he was pre-eminently one given to forming 
 his own judgment instead of accepting it ready made 
 from Dick, Tom, and Harry. If Hazon was vin- 
 dictive, why, so was he; if unscrupulous, so could 
 he be if driven to it. He resolved to find an oppor- 
 tunity of cultivating the man, and if he could not 
 find one he would make it. Now he saw such an 
 opportunity. 
 
 " What do you think of this rumor that the revolu- 
 tion in Brazil is going to knock out our share 
 market? " he said, suddenly looking up from the paper 
 he was reading. 
 
 " It may do that," answered Hazon. " This year's 
 boom has been a mere sick attempt at one. Wouldn't 
 take much to knock out what little there is of it." 
 
 Laurence felt a cold qualm. There had been an 
 ominous drop the last day or two. Still Rainsford 
 and one or two others had recommended him to hold 
 on. This man spoke so quietly, yet withal so pro- 
 phetically. What if he, in his inscrutable way, were 
 more than ordinarily in the know? 
 
 " Queer place this," pursued Hazon, the other hav- 
 ing uttered a dubious affirmative. " Taking it all 
 round, it and its crowd, it's not far from the queerest 
 place I've ever seen in my life, and I've seen some 
 queer places and some queerish crowds." 
 
 " I expect you have. By the way, I suppose you've 
 done a good deal of up-country hunting? " 
 
 "A goodish deal. Are you fond of the gun? I 
 notice you go out pretty often, but there's nothing to 
 shoot around here." 
 
 " I just am fond of it," replied Laurence. " If 
 73 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 things turn out all right I shall cut in with some 
 fellow for an up-country trip if I can. Big game 
 this time." 
 
 The other smiled darkly, enigmatically. 
 
 " Yes. That's real real," he said. " Try some of 
 this," handing his tobacco bag, as Laurence began to 
 scratch out his empty pipe, " unless, that is, you 
 haven't got over the new-comer's prejudice against 
 the best tobacco in the world, the name whereof is 
 Transvaal." 
 
 " Thanks. No, I have no prejudice against it. On 
 the contrary, as to its merits I am disposed to agree 
 with you." 
 
 Throughout this conversation Laurence, who had 
 a keen ear for that sort of thing, could not help 
 noticing the other's voice. It was a pleasing voice, 
 a cultured voice, and refined withal, nor could his 
 fastidious ear detect the faintest trace of provincial- 
 ism or vulgarity about it. The intonation was 
 perfect. There is nothing so quick to betray to the 
 sensitive ear any strain of plebeian descent as the 
 voice, and of this no one was more thoroughly aware 
 than Laurence Stanninghame. This man, he decided, 
 was of good birth. 
 
 The ice broken, they talked on, in the apparently 
 careless, but in reality guarded way which had become 
 second nature to both of them. More than one 
 strange and very shady anecdote was Hazon able 
 to narrate concerning the place and its inhabitants, 
 and especially concerning certain among the latter 
 who ranked high for morality, commercially or 
 otherwise. There were actions done in their midst 
 
 74 
 
"PIRATE" HAZON. 
 
 every day, he declared, which, for barefaced and un- 
 scrupulous rascality, would put to the blush other 
 actions for which the law would hang a man without 
 mercy, all other men applauding, but with this 
 difference, that whereas the former demanded a 
 creeping and crawling cowardliness to insure success, 
 the latter involved iron nerve and the well-nigh daily 
 shaking hands with death death, too, in many an 
 appalling and ghastly form. All of which was " dark " 
 talking as far as Laurence was concerned, though 
 the day was to come when its meaning should stand 
 forth as clear as a printed page. 
 
 Even now, however, he was not absolutely mysti- 
 fied far from it, indeed; for he himself was a hard 
 thinker, owning an ever-vivid and busy brain. He 
 could put half a dozen meanings to any one or other 
 of his companion's utterances, and among them prob- 
 ably the right one. And, as they talked on, he 
 became alive to something almost magnetic a sort 
 of subtile, compelling force about Hazon. Was it his 
 voice or manner or general aspect, or a combination 
 of all three? He could not tell. He could only 
 realize that it existed. 
 
 For some days after this conversation the two men 
 did not come together, though they would nod the 
 time of day to each other as before, and Laurence, 
 who had other considerations upon his hands mone- 
 tary and agreeable did not give the matter a thought. 
 At last he noticed that Hazon's place at the table was 
 vacant remembering, too, that it had been so for a 
 day or two. Had he left? 
 
 To his inquiries on that head he obtained scant 
 75 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 and uncordial response. Hazon was ill, some be- 
 lieved, while others charitably opined that he was 
 " on the booze." Whatever it was no one cared, and 
 strongly recommended Laurence to do likewise. 
 
 The latter, we have shown, was peculiarly unsus- 
 ceptible to public opinion, which, if it influenced him 
 at all, did so in the very opposite direction to that 
 which was intended. Accordingly, he now made up 
 his mind to ascertain the truth for himself to which 
 end he found himself speedily knocking at the door 
 of Hazon's room, the while marvelling at his own 
 unwonted perturbation lest his overture should be 
 regarded as an intrusion. 
 
 " Heard you were ill," he said shortly, having 
 entered in obedience to the responsive "Come in." 
 " Rough luck being ill in a place like this, or 
 indeed in any place, for that matter. Thought I'd 
 see if there's anything I could do for you. " 
 
 " Very good of you, Stanninghame. Sit down 
 there on that box it's lower than the chair, and 
 therefore more comfortable. Yes, I feel a bit knocked 
 out. A touch of the old up-country shivers, or some- 
 thing of the kind. It's a thing you never entirely 
 pull round from, once you've had it. I'll be all right, 
 though, in a day or two." 
 
 The speaker was lying on his bed, clad in his 
 trousers and shirt. The latter, open from the throat, 
 revealed part of a great livid scar, running diagonally 
 across the swarthy chest, and representing what must 
 have been a terrific slash. Two other scars also 
 showed on the muscular forearm, half-way between 
 elbow and wrist. What was it to Laurence whether 
 
 76 
 
" PIRATE" HAZON. 
 
 this person or that person lived or died? Why, 
 nothing. Yet there was something so pathetic, so 
 helpless in the aspect of the man, lying there day 
 after day, patient, solitary, uncomplaining shunned 
 and avoided by those around that appealed power- 
 fully to his feelings. Heavens! was he turning soft- 
 hearted at his time of life, that he should feel so 
 unaccountably stirred by the bare act of coming to 
 visit this ailing and unbefriended stranger? 
 
 In truth, there was nothing awe-inspiring about 
 the latter now. His piercing black eyes seemed 
 large and soft; the expression of his dark face was 
 one of weariful helplessness, yet of schooled patience. 
 A queer thought flashed through Laurence's brain. 
 Was it in Hazon's power to produce whatever effect 
 he chose Upon the minds of others? Had he chosen, 
 for some inscrutable purpose, to render himself 
 shunned and feared? Was he now, on like principle, 
 adopting the surest means to win over to him this one 
 man who had sought him out on his lonely sick-bed? 
 and if so, to what end? It was more than a passing 
 thought, nor from that moment onward could Lau- 
 rence ever get it entirely out of his mind. 
 
 " Fill your pipe, Stanninghame," said Hazon, break- 
 ing into this train of thought, which, all unconsciously, 
 had entailed a long gap of silence. " I don't in the 
 least mind smoke, although I can't blow off a cloud 
 myself just now at least I have no inclination that 
 way," he added, reaching for a bottle of white powder 
 which stood upon a box by the bedside, and mixing 
 himself a modicum of quinine. 
 
 " Had a doctor of any sort, Hazon? " 
 
 77 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 " What good would that do except to the doctor? 
 I know what's the matter with me, and I know exactly 
 what to do for it. I don't want to pay another fellow 
 a couple of guineas or so to tell me. Not but what 
 doctors have their uses in wounds and surgery, for 
 instance. But I'm curiously like an animal. When 
 I get anything the matter with me which I don't 
 often I like to creep away and lie low. I like to 
 take it alone." 
 
 " Well, I'm built rather that way myself, Hazon. 
 I won't apologize for intruding, because you know as 
 well as I do that no such consideration enters into the 
 matter. Still, I want you to know that if there's any- 
 thing I can do for you, you have only to say so." 
 
 " Thanks. You are not quite like other people, 
 Stanninghame. Life is no great thing, s it, that 
 everybody should stir up such a mighty fuss about 
 clearing out of it? " 
 
 " No, it's no great thing," assented Laurence 
 darkly. " Yet it might be made so." 
 
 "How that?" 
 
 " With wealth. With wealth you can do anything 
 command anything buy anything. They say that 
 wealth won't purchase life, but very often it will." 
 
 " You're about three parts right. It will, for in- 
 stance, enable a man to lead the life he needs in order 
 to preserve his physical and mental vigour at its 
 highest. Even from the moralist's point of view it is 
 all round desirable, for nothing is so morally deterio- 
 rating as a life of narrow and cramped pinching, when 
 all one's best years are spent in hungering and long- 
 ing for what one will never again attain." 
 
 78 
 
"PIRATE" HAZON. 
 
 " You speak like a book, Hazon," said Laurence, 
 not wondering that the other should have sized up his 
 own case so exhaustively not wondering, because he 
 was an observer of human nature and a character- 
 reader himself. Then, bitterly, " Yet that pumpkin- 
 pated entity, the ponderous moralist, would contend 
 that the lack of all that made life worth living was good 
 as a stimulus to urge to exertion, and all the hollow 
 old clap-trap." 
 
 " Quite so. But how many attain to the reward 
 the end of the said exertion? Not one in a hundred. 
 And then, in nine cases out of ten, how does that one 
 do it? By fraud, and thieving, and over-reaching, 
 and sycophancy in short, by running through the 
 whole gamut of the scale of rascality rascality of 
 the meaner kind, mark you. Then when this winner 
 in the battle of life comes out top, the world 
 crowns him with fat and fulsome eulogy, and falls 
 down and worships his cheque-book, crying, ' Behold 
 a self-made man ; go thou and do likewise ! ' '' 
 
 " You've not merely hit the right nail on the head, 
 Hazon, but you've driven it right home," said Lau- 
 rence decisively, recognizing that here was a man 
 after his own heart. 
 
 Two or three days went by before Hazon felt able 
 or inclined to leave his bed, and a good part of each 
 was spent by Laurence sitting in the sick man's room 
 and talking. And it may have been that the lonely 
 man felt cheered by the companionship and the 
 friendliness that proffered it, what time all others 
 held aloof; or that the two were akin in ideas, or both; 
 
 79 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 but henceforward a sort of intimacy struck up 
 between them, and it was noticed that Hazon no 
 longer went about invariably alone. Then people 
 began to look somewhat queerly at Laurence. 
 
 " You and * the Pirate ' have become quite thick 
 together, Stanninghame," said Rainsford one day, 
 meeting him alone. 
 
 " Well, why not? " answered Laurence, rather 
 shortly, resenting the inquisitional nature of the 
 question. Then point blank, " See here, Rainsford. 
 Why are you all so down on the man? What has he 
 done, anyway? " 
 
 " You needn't get your shirt out, old chap," was the 
 answer, quite good-humouredly. " Look here, now 
 we are alone together so just between ourselves. 
 Do you notice how all of these up-country going fel- 
 lows shunt him Wheeler, for instance? and Garway, 
 who is at your hotel, never speaks to him. And 
 Garway, you'll admit, is as good a fellow as ever 
 lived." 
 
 " Yes, I'll own up to that. What then? " 
 
 " Only this, that they know a good deal that we 
 don't." 
 
 "Well, what do they know or say they know?" 
 
 " Look here, Stanninghame," said Rainsford, rather 
 mysteriously, " has Hazon ever told you any of his 
 up-country experiences? " 
 
 " A few yes." 
 
 " Did he ever suggest you should take a trip with 
 him?" 
 
 " We have even discussed that possibility." 
 
 "Ah ! " Then Rainsford gave a long whistle, 
 
 80 
 
-PIRATE" HAZON. 
 
 and his voice became impressive as he resumed: 
 " Watch it, Stanninghame. From time to time other 
 men have gone up country with Hazon, but not one 
 of them has ever returned." 
 
 " Oh, that's what you're all down on him about, 
 is it? " 
 
 The other nodded; then, with a "so-long," he cut 
 across the street and disappeared into an office where 
 he had business. 
 
 81 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 No more foolish passion was ever implanted in 
 the human breast than that of jealousy unless it were 
 that of which it is the direct outcome nor is there 
 any which the average human is less potent to resist. 
 The victim of either, or both, is for the time being 
 outside reason. 
 
 Now the first-mentioned form of disease is, to the 
 philosophical mind, of all others the most essentially 
 foolish indeed, we can hardly call to mind any other 
 so thoroughly calculated to turn the average well- 
 constructed man or woman into an exuberantly 
 incurable idiot. For what does it amount to when 
 we come to pan it out? If there exist grounds for 
 the misgiving, why then it is going begging 
 grovelling for something which the other party has 
 not got to give; if groundless, is it not a fulfilling of 
 the homely old saw relating to cutting off one's nose 
 to spite one's face? (We disclaim any intent to pun.) 
 In either case it is such a full and whole-souled giv- 
 ing of himself, or herself, away on the part of the 
 patient; while on that of its object is he, or she, 
 worth it? 
 
 Now, from a very acute form of this insanity 
 George Falkner was a chronic sufferer. He had 
 
"THE WHOLE SOUL PRISONER." 
 
 cherished a secret weakness for Lilith, almost when 
 she was yet in short frocks, but since her return from 
 England, from the moment he had once more set 
 eyes upon her on the deck of the Persian, he had 
 tumbled madly, uncontrollably, headlong in love. 
 Did a member of the opposite sex so much as ex- 
 change commonplaces with her, George Falkner's 
 personality would contrive to loom, grim and dark, 
 and almost threatening, in the background ; while 
 such male animal who should enjoy the pleasure of 
 say an hour of Lilith's society a deux, even with no 
 more flirtatious or ultimate intent than the same 
 period spent in the society of his grandmother, would 
 inspire in George a fell murderousness, which was 
 nothing short of a reversion to first principles. As 
 for Lilith herself, she was fond of him, very, in a 
 sisterly, cousinly way and what way, indeed, could 
 be more fatal to that by which he desired to travel? 
 Nor did it mend matters any that their mutual 
 relatives were the reverse of favourable to his aspira- 
 tions, on the ground of the near relationship existing 
 between the parties. So, poor George, seeing no 
 light, became morose and quarrelsome, and wholly 
 and violently unreasonable in short, a bore. All 
 of which was a pity, because, this weakness apart, he 
 was, on the whole, rather a good fellow. 
 
 He had come to the Rand, like everybody else, to 
 wait for the boom which boom, like the chariots of 
 Israel, though totally unlike the children of the same, 
 tarried long in coming; indeed, by that time there 
 were not wanting those who feared that it might not 
 come at all. He had pleaded with his aunt to invite 
 
 83 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 Lilith at the same time, artfully putting it that the 
 opportunity of his escort was too good to be missed; 
 and Mrs. Falkner, with whom he was a prime favour- 
 ite, although she did not approve his aspirations, 
 weakly agreed. And so here they were beneath the 
 same roof, with the addition of his second sister, the 
 blue-eyed Mabel, whose acquaintance we have already 
 made. 
 
 The latter, in her soft, fair-haired, pink and roses 
 style, was a very pretty girl. She, for her part, could 
 count " coup " to a creditable extent, and among the 
 latest scalps which she had hung to her dainty 
 twenty-inch girdle was that of our friend Holmes. 
 
 This idiot, we were going to say, looked back 
 upon that deadly, monotonous, starved, dusty, flea- 
 bitten coach-ride of three days and two nights as a 
 species of Elysium, and in the result was perennially 
 importuning Laurence to take a stroll down to 
 Booyseus, " Just for a constitutional, you know." 
 And the latter would laugh, and good-naturedly ac- 
 quiesce. It was a cheap way of setting up a character 
 for amiability, he would say to himself satirically; for 
 as yet Holmes hardly suspected he was almost as 
 powerfully drawn thither as Holmes was himself 
 more powerfully, perhaps only, with the advantage 
 of years and experience and cooler brain, he had him- 
 self more in hand. 
 
 " Instead of making a prize gooseberry of me, 
 Holmes, as a very appropriate item against the ' silly ' 
 season," he said one day, " you had much better go 
 over by yourself. You are getting into Falkner's 
 black books. He hates me like poison, you know." 
 
 84 
 
"THE WHOLE SOUL PRISONER." 
 
 " But that's just why I want you along, Stanning- 
 hame. While he's trying to stand you off in the 
 other quarter, I'm in it, don't you see? " replied the 
 other, with whole-hearted ingenuousness. 
 
 Holmes had stated no more than the truth. Of 
 all the " rivals," real or imaginary, whom the jealous 
 George hated and feared, qua rival, none could touch 
 Laurence Stanninghame. For by this time it had 
 become patent to his watchful eyes that among the 
 swarms of visitors of the male, and therefore, to him, 
 obnoxious sex, at whose coming Lilith's glance would 
 brighten, and with whom she would converse with a 
 kind of affectionate confidentiality when others were 
 present, and apparently even more so when others 
 were not, that objectionable personage was the said 
 Laurence Stanninghame. 
 
 This being the case, it followed that George 
 Falkner, looking out on the stoep one fine afternoon, 
 and descrying the approach of his bugbear, stifled a 
 bad cuss-word or two, and then exploded aloud in 
 more approved and passworthy fashion. 
 
 " There's that bounder coming here again." 
 
 " ' Bounder ' being Dutch for somebody you detest 
 eh, George?" said Lilith sweetly. 
 
 " Confound it ! That everlasting trying to be 
 sharp is one of the most deadly things a man has 
 to put up with. It's catching eh, Lilith? " was the 
 sneering retort. 
 
 " But who is it? " said Mrs. Falkner, who was short- 
 sighted, or affected to be. 
 
 " Oh, the great god, Stanninghame, of course, and 
 his pup, Holmes." 
 
 85 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 Now the ill-conditioned George had stirred up a 
 hornet's nest, for his sister took up the parable. 
 
 " Well, there are lessons to be learned even from 
 ' pups/ " said Mabel scathingly. " They are not 
 always growling, at any rate." 
 
 " Oh, you're on the would-be smart lay, too? 
 Didn't I say it was catching? " he jeered. 
 
 " Yes, and you say a great many things that are 
 supremely foolish," retorted Mabel, turning up her 
 tip-tilted nose a little more, in fine scorn. 
 
 " Well, I'm off to the camp," said George, with a 
 sort of snarl, reaching for a hat. " Clearly, I'm not 
 wanted here." 
 
 " You're not, if you're going to do nothing but 
 make yourself fiendishly disagreeable," rejoined his 
 sister, pertly pitiless. In reality she was very fond 
 of him, and he of her, but he had trampled on a 
 tender place; for she liked Holmes. 
 
 George banged on his hat, strode angrily to the 
 door, and got no farther. He did not see why he 
 should leave the field clear to all comers, even if he 
 were out of the running himself; a line of irreso- 
 luteness which affords an excellent exemplifica- 
 tion of the remarks wherewith we have opened this 
 chapter. 
 
 By all but George, who was excusably undemon- 
 strative, the two new arrivals were greeted with 
 customary cordiality. 
 
 " Why, Mr. Stanninghame, it seems quite a long 
 time since we saw you last," said Mrs. Falkner, as 
 they were all seated out on the stoep. " What have 
 you been doing with yourself? " 
 
 86 
 
"THE WHOLE SOUL PRISONER." 
 
 " The usual thing studying the share market, and 
 talking about it." 
 
 " And is the outlook still as bad as it was? " 
 
 " Worse. However, we must hope it '11 go better." 
 
 " I hear that you and that queer man, Mr. Hazon, 
 have become such friends, Mr. Stanninghame." 
 
 This was the sort of remark with which Laurence 
 had scant patience, the more so that it met him at 
 every turn. What concern was it of the Rand 
 collectively who he chose to be friendly with, that 
 every third person he met should rap out such kind 
 of comment? 
 
 " Oh, we get along all right, Mrs. Falkner," he 
 answered. " But then I have a special faculty for 
 hitting it off with unpopular persons possibly a kind 
 of fellow-feeling. Besides, accepting ready-made 
 judgments concerning other people does not com- 
 mend itself to my mind on any score of logic or 
 sound sense. It is just a trifle less insane than taking 
 up other people's quarrels, but only just." 
 
 " I dare say you're right; only it is difficult for most 
 of us to be so consistently, so faultlessly logical. No 
 doubt most of the things they say about him are not 
 true." 
 
 " But what are most of the things they say, Mrs. 
 Falkner? Now I, for my part, never can get any- 
 body to say anything. They will hint unutterables 
 and look unutterables, but when it comes to saying 
 no, thank you, they are not taking any." 
 
 " But he is such a very mysterious personage. Not 
 a soul here knows anything about him about his 
 affairs, I mean and who he is." 
 
 87 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 " Perhaps that enhances his attractiveness in my 
 eyes, Mrs. Falkner. There is prestige in the un- 
 known.'* 
 
 " Not of a good kind, as a rule," she replied, and 
 then stopped short, for a dry malicious cough on the 
 part of George brought home to her the consciousness 
 that she was putting her foot in it pretty effectively. 
 For the same held good of the man to whom she was 
 talking; about Laurence Stanninghame and his affairs 
 not a soul there knew anything. 
 
 Not a soul? Yes, one, peradventure. For between 
 himself and Lilith the interchange of ideas had been 
 plenteous and frequent, and the subtile, sympathetic 
 vein existing between them had deepened and grown 
 apace. About himself and his affairs he had told her 
 nothing, yet it is probable that he could tell her but 
 little on this head that would be news in any sense of 
 the word. Lilith's aunt, however, who was a good- 
 hearted soul, without a grain of malice in her composi- 
 tion, felt supremely uncomfortable and quite savage 
 with George, who was now grinning, sourly and sig- 
 nificantly. 
 
 None of this by-play was lost upon Laurence, but 
 he showed no consciousness. He knew that George 
 Falkner detested him detested him cordially, yet he 
 in no wise reciprocated this dislike. He did not 
 blame George. Probably he would have felt the 
 same way himself, had he been in George's place and 
 at George's age; for the latter had the advantage of 
 him on the side of youth by at least ten years. He 
 was inclined to like him, and at any rate was sorry for 
 him, perhaps with a dash of pity that came near con- 
 
 88 
 
"THE WHOLE SOUL PRISONER." 
 
 tempt. Poor George did give himself away so, and 
 it was so foolish so supremely foolish. Yet not for 
 a moment did it occur to Laurence to efface himself 
 in this connection. Duty? Hang duty! He had 
 made a most ruinous muddle of his whole life through 
 reverencing that fetich word. Honour? There was 
 no breach of honour where there was no deception, 
 no pretence. Consideration for others? Who on 
 earth ever dreamt of considering him when to do so 
 would cost them anything, that is? Unselfishness? 
 Everybody was selfish everything even. What had 
 he ever gained by striving to improve upon the uni- 
 versal law? Nothing nothing good; everything 
 bad bad and deteriorating morally and physically. 
 And now, should he put the goblet from his lips? 
 Not he. This strong, new wine of life had rejuven- 
 ated him. Its rich, sweet fumes, so far from clouding 
 his brain, had cleared it. It had enwrapped his heart 
 in a glow as of re-enkindled fire, and caused the 
 stagnated blood to course once more through his 
 veins, warm and strong and free. His very step 
 had gained an elasticity, a firmness, to which it had 
 long been strange. And yet with all this, his judg- 
 ment had remained undimmed, keen, clear, subject to 
 no illusions. The logic of the situation was rather 
 pitiless, perchance cruel. He was under no sort of 
 illusion on that score. Well, let it be. Here again 
 came in the universal law of life, the battle of the 
 strong. There was no weakness left in him. 
 
 " For my part, I like Hazon," cut in Holmes de- 
 cisively; " he only wants knowing. And because he 
 
 8 9 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 doesn't let himself go for the benefit of every bounder 
 on the Rand, they talk about him as if he'd committed 
 no end of murders. It's my belief that half the fel- 
 lows who abuse him are ten thousand times worse than 
 him," he added, with the robust partisanship of hearty 
 youth. 
 
 Further discussion of Hazon and his derelictions, 
 real or imaginary, was cut short by the arrival of 
 more visitors, mostly of the sterner sex; for Mrs. 
 Falkner liked her acquaintance to drop in informally 
 a predilection her acquaintance, if young and 
 especially of the harder sex aforesaid, for obvious 
 reasons, delighted just at present to humour. George, 
 however, in no wise shared his aunt's expansiveness 
 in this direction, if only that it meant that Lilith was 
 promptly surrounded by an adoring phalanx, even as 
 on the deck of the Persian. 
 
 Now it was voted cool enough for lawn tennis for 
 which distraction, indeed, some of the droppers-in 
 were suitably attired and there was keen competition 
 for Lilith as a partner; and Holmes, being first in the 
 field, resolutely bore off Mabel Falkner as his aux- 
 iliary. And George, realizing that he was " out of it " 
 for some time to come, perhaps, too, taking a vague 
 comfort in the thought that there is safety in numbers, 
 actually did proceed to carry out his threat, and 
 betook himself townwards. 
 
 Laurence remained seated on the stoep, talking to 
 Mrs. Falkner and one of the visitors; but all the 
 while, though never absent-minded or answering at 
 random, his eyes were following, with a soothing and 
 restful sense of enjoyment, every movement of Lilith's 
 
 9 
 
"THE WHOLE SOUL PRISONER." 
 
 form a very embodiment of grace and supple ease, he 
 pronounced it. The movement of the game suited her 
 as it suited but few. She never seemed to grow hot, or 
 flurried, or dishevelled, as so many of the fair are wont 
 to do while engaged in that popular pastime. Every 
 movement was one of unstudied, unconscious grace. 
 In point of hard fact, she played indifferently ; but she 
 did so in a manner that was infinitely good to look at. 
 
 " Don't you play at this, Mr. Stanninghame? " said 
 the other visitor, " or have you got a soul above such 
 frivolities?" 
 
 " That doesn't exactly express it," he answered. 
 " The truth is, I don't derive sufficient enjoyment from 
 skipping about on one or both legs at the end of a 
 racket, making frantic attempts to stop a ball which 
 the other side is making equally frantic and fruitless 
 efforts to drive at me through a net. As a dispassion- 
 ate observer, the essence of the game seems to me to 
 consist in sending the ball against the net as hard 
 and as frequently as practicable." 
 
 At this the visitor spluttered, and, being of the 
 softer sex, declared that he must be a most dreadful 
 cynic; and Lilith, who was near enough to hear his 
 remarks, turned her head, with a rippling flash of 
 mirth in her eyes, and said "Thank you!" which 
 diversion indeed caused her to perform the very feat 
 he had been so whimsically describing. 
 
 Presently, growing tired of talking, he withdrew 
 from the others. It happened that there was a book 
 in the drawing room which had caught his attention 
 during a former visit; and now he sought it, and 
 taking it up from the table, stood there alone in the 
 
 91 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. ' 
 
 cool shaded room turning from page to page, absorbed 
 in comparing passages of its contents. Then a light 
 step, a rustle of skirts, a lilt of song which broke off 
 short as he raised his eyes. Lilith was passing 
 through, her tennis racket still in her hand. Slightly 
 flushed with her recent exercise, she looked radiantly 
 sweet, in her dark, brilliant beauty. 
 
 " Oh, I didn't know anyone was here; least of all, 
 you," she said. " You startled me." 
 
 "Sorceress, remove those unholy spells; for thou 
 art indeed good to look upon this day." 
 
 She flashed a smile at him, throwing back her head 
 with that slight, quick movement which constituted 
 in her a very subtile and potent charm. 
 
 " Flatterer! Do you think so? Well, I am glad." 
 
 She dropped her hand down upon his, as it rested on 
 the table, with a swift, light, caressing pressure, and 
 her eyes softened entrancingly as they looked up into 
 his. Then she was gone. 
 
 He stood there, cool, immovable, self-possessed, 
 outwardly still to all appearance intent upon the book 
 which he held. But in reality he saw it not. His 
 whole mental faculties were called into play to en- 
 deavour imagination to retain that soft, light pressure 
 upon his hand. His resources of memory were con- 
 centrated upon the picture of her as she stood there 
 a moment since, lovely, smiling, enchanting, and 
 then the sombre brain-wave, reminding of the hope- 
 lessness, the mockery of life's inexorable circumstance, 
 would roll in upon his mind; and heart would seem 
 tightened, crushed, strangled with a pain that was 
 actually physical of such acuteness indeed, that, had 
 
 92 
 
"THE WHOLE SOUL PRISONER." 
 
 that organ been weak, he would be in danger of fall- 
 ing dead on the spot. And this was a part of the 
 penalty he had to pay for his well-nigh superhuman 
 self-control. 
 
 He loved her this man who loved nothing and 
 nobody living, not even himself. He loved her 
 ihis man whose life was all behind him, and whose 
 heart was of stone, and whose speech was acrid as 
 the most corrosive element known to chemistry. 
 But a few " passes " of sweet Sorceress Lilith's magi- 
 cal wand and the stone heart had split to fragments, 
 pouring forth, giving release to, a warm well-spring. 
 A well-spring? A very torrent, deep, fierce, strong, 
 but not irresistible as yet. Still there were mo- 
 ments when to keep it penned within its limits was 
 agony agony untold, superhuman, well-nigh unen- 
 durable. 
 
 He loved her he who was bound by legal ties 
 until death. With all the strong concentrative might 
 of his otherwise hard nature, he loved her. The 
 dead dismal failure of the past, the sombre vistas of 
 the future, were as nothing compared with such 
 moments as this. Yet none suspected, so marvel- 
 lously did he hold himself in hand. Even the most 
 jealous of those who saw them frequently together 
 George Falkner, for instance, and others were blind 
 and unsuspecting. But what of Lilith herself? 
 
 93 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DARK DAYS. 
 
 THE share market at Johannesburg was rapidly 
 going to the deuce. 
 
 Some there were who ardently wished that Johan- 
 nesburg itself had gone thither, before they had heard 
 of its unlucky and delusive existence, and among this 
 daily increasing number might now be reckoned 
 Laurence Stanninghame. He, infected with the 
 gambler's fever of speculation, had not thought it 
 worth while to " hedge " ; it was to be all or nothing. 
 And now, as things turned out, it was nothing. The 
 old story a fictitious market, bolstered up by ficti- 
 tious and inflated prices; a sudden "slump," and 
 then everybody with one mind eager to dispose of 
 scrip, barely worth the paper of which it consisted 
 in fact, unsaleable. King Scrip had landed his de- 
 voted subjects in a pretty hole. 
 
 " You're not the only one, Stanninghame no, not 
 by a long, long chalk," said Rainsford ruefully, as 
 they were talking matters over one day. " I'm hard 
 hit myself, and I could point you out men here who 
 were worth tens of thousands a month ago, and 
 couldn't muster a hard hundred cash at this moment 
 if their lives depended on it worse, too, men whose 
 overdraft is nearly as big as their capital was the same 
 time back." 
 
 94 
 
DARK DAYS. 
 
 " I suppose so. Yet most fellows of that kind are 
 adepts at the fine old business quality of besting their 
 neighbours, one in which I am totally lacking, pos- 
 sibly owing to want of practice. They can go smash 
 and come up smiling, and in a little while be worth 
 more than ever. They know how to do it, you see, 
 and I don't. Smash for me means smash, and that of 
 a signally grievous kind." 
 
 Rainsford looked at him curiously. 
 
 " Oh, bother it, Stanninghame, you're no worse off 
 than the rest of us. We've got to lie low and hang 
 on for a bit, and watch our chances." 
 
 " Possibly you are right, Rainsford. No doubt you 
 are. Still every donkey knows where his own saddle 
 galls him." 
 
 " Rather, old chap," replied the other, whose hat 
 covered the total of his liability. " The only thing 
 to do is to hold on tight, have a drink, and trust in 
 Providence. We'll go and have the drink." 
 
 They adjourned to a convenient bar. It was about 
 noon, and the place was fairly full. Here they found 
 Holmes in the middle of a crowd, also Rankin and 
 Wheeler. The consumption of " John Walker " was 
 proceeding at a brisk rate. 
 
 " Hallo, Stanninghame, how are you? " cried Ran- 
 kin ; " haven't seen you for a long time. I think 
 another * smile ' wouldn't hurt us, eh? What do you 
 say? I'm doing bitters. Nothing like Angostura 
 with a little drop of gin in it; gives tone to the sys- 
 tem. What's yours?" 
 
 Laurence named his, and the genial Rankin having 
 shouted for it and other " rounds," proceeded to un- 
 
 95 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 fold some wondrous scheme by which he was infallibly 
 bound to retrieve all their fortunes at least cent, per 
 cent. It was only a matter of a little capital. Any- 
 one who had the foresight to intrust him with a few 
 hundreds might consider his fortune made. But, 
 somehow, nobody could be found to hand over those 
 few hundreds. In point of fact, nobody had got them. 
 
 " Here, Rainsford," sung out somebody, " we are 
 tossing for another ' all round.' Won't your friend 
 cut in?" 
 
 Laurence did cut in, and then Holmes, who, being 
 of genial disposition, and very hard hit too in the 
 scrip line, began uproariously to suggest a further 
 " drown care." 
 
 " Excuse me, eh, Holmes? " said Laurence. " It's 
 getting too thick, and I don't think this is a sort of 
 care that '11 bear drowning. I'm off. So-long, every- 
 body." 
 
 " Hold on, Stanninghame," sung out Rankin, who 
 was the most hospitable soul alive. " Come round to 
 the house and dine with us. I'm just going along. 
 We'd better do another bitters though, first. What 
 do you say? " 
 
 But Laurence declined both hospitalities. A very 
 dark mood was upon him one which rendered the 
 idea of the society of his fellows distasteful to the last 
 degree. So he left the carousing crowd, and betook 
 himself to his quarters. 
 
 Now the method of drowning care as thus prac- 
 tised commended itself to him on no principle of 
 practical efficacy. He had care enough to drown, 
 Heaven knew, but against any temptation to fly to 
 
 96 
 
DARK DAYS. 
 
 the bottle in order to swamp it he was proof. His 
 very cynicism, selfish, egotistical as it might be in its 
 hard and sweeping ruthlessness, was a safeguard to 
 him in this connection. That he, Laurence Stanning- 
 hame, to whom the vast bulk of mankind represented 
 a commingling of rogue and fool in about equal pro- 
 portion, should ever come to render himself unsteady 
 on his feet, and hardly responsible for the words which 
 came from his brain, presented a picture so unutter- 
 ably degraded and loathsome, that his mind recoiled 
 from the barest contemplation of it. 
 
 Yes, he had care enough, in all conscience, that 
 day as he walked back to his quarters; for unless the 
 market took a turn for the better, so sudden as to be 
 almost miraculous, the time when he would any 
 longer have a roof over his head might be counted 
 by weeks. And now every mail brought him grum- 
 bling, querulous letters asking for money when there 
 was none to send bitter and contentious letters, full 
 of complaint and the raking up of old sores and soul- 
 wearying lamentation; gibing reproaches, too, to him 
 who had beggared himself that these might live. It 
 would have been burden enough had it mattered 
 greatly to him whether anyone in the world lived or 
 not; but here the burden was tenfold by reason of its 
 utter lack of appreciation, of common gratitude, of 
 consideration for the shoulders which, sorely weighed 
 down and chafed, yet still supported it. 
 
 But if the refuge which is the resort of the weak 
 held out no temptation to him, there was another 
 refuge of which the exact opposite held ^oocl. In 
 weird and gloomy form all the recollections and fail- 
 
 97 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 tires of his past life would rise up and confront him. 
 What an unutterable hash he had made of it and its 
 opportunities! It did not do to run straight the 
 world was not good enough for it; so he had found. 
 That for the past; for the future what? Nothing. 
 For some there was no future, and he was one of 
 these. He saw no light. 
 
 Lying on his bed, in the heat of the early afternoon, 
 he realized all this for the hundredth time. The 
 temptation to end it all was strong upon him. 
 Stronger and stronger it grew, as though shadowy 
 demon-shapes were hovering in the shaded, half- 
 darkened room. It grew until it was well-nigh over- 
 mastering. His eyes began to wander meaningly 
 towards a locked drawer, and he half rose. 
 
 Against this temptation his hardened cynicism was 
 no safeguard at all; rather did it tend to foster it, and 
 that by reason of a corrosive disgust with life and the 
 conditions thereof which it engendered within him. 
 Then, in his half-dreamy state, a sweet and softening 
 influence seemed to steal in upon his soul. He 
 thought he would like to see Lilith Ormskirk once 
 more. Was it foolishness, weakness? Not a bit. 
 Rather was it hard, matter-of-fact, logical philosophy. 
 He had made an unparalleled hash of life. If he were 
 going to leave it now it was sound logic to do so with, 
 as it were, a sweet taste upon his mental palate. 
 
 Was it an omen for good, an earnest of a turn in 
 the wheel of ill-luck? On reaching Booyseus he was 
 so fortunate as to find Lilith not only at home but 
 alone. Her face lighted up at the sight of him. 
 
 98 
 
DARK DAYS. 
 
 " How sweet of you to toil out here this hot after- 
 noon," she said, as he took within his the two hands 
 she had instinctively held out to him. For a moment 
 he looked at her without replying, contrasting the 
 grim motive which had brought him hither with this 
 perfect embodiment of youth, and health, and beauty, 
 with all of life, all of the future yet before her all of 
 life with its possibilities. She was in radiant spirits, 
 and the hazel eyes shone entrancingly, and the slight 
 flush under the dark warmth of the satin skin, caused 
 by the unaffected pleasure inspired by his arrival, 
 rendered even his strong head a trifle unsteady, as 
 though with a rich, sweet, overpowering intoxication. 
 
 " Well, the reward is great," he answered, still re- 
 taining her hands in a lingering pressure. " Are you 
 all alone, child? " 
 
 " Yes," she said, that pleased flush mantling again, 
 the diminutive sounding strangely sweet to her ears 
 as coming from him. 
 
 " But you we may not be much longer. People 
 might drop in at any moment, and I want to be alone 
 with you this afternoon. I am spoiling for one of 
 our long talks, so put on a hat and come for a stroll 
 across the veldt. Or is it too hot? " 
 
 " You know it is not," she answered. " Now, I 
 won't be a minute." 
 
 She was as good as her word, for she reappeared 
 almost immediately with a hat and sunshade, and 
 they set forth, striking out over the bare open veldt 
 which extended around and behind the Booyseus 
 estate. The heat was great, greater than most women 
 would have cared to face, but the blue cloudlessness 
 
 99 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 of the sky, the sheeny glow of the sun upon the free 
 open country was so much delight to Lilith Orms- 
 kirk. In her love for all that was bright and glowing 
 she was a true daughter of the South. 
 
 "Oh, Laurence, how good it is to live!" she ex- 
 claimed, as they stepped out at a brisk pace in the 
 glorious openness of the warm air. " Do you know, 
 I feel at times so bright, and well, and happy in the 
 very joy and thankfulness of being alive, that it 
 almost brings tears. Do you understand the feeling? 
 Tell me." 
 
 " I think so." 
 
 " But did you ever feel that way yourself? " 
 
 " Perhaps in fact, I must have, because I under- 
 stand so thoroughly what you mean; but it must have 
 been a very, very long time ago." 
 
 His tone was that of one gravely amused, indul- 
 gently caressing. Heavens! he was thinking. The 
 contrast here was quite delicious; in fact, it was 
 unique. If only Lilith could have seen into his 
 thoughts at that moment, if only she had had the 
 faintest inkling as to their nature an hour or so back. 
 Still something in his look or in his tone sobered 
 her. 
 
 " Ah, Laurence, forgive me," she cried. " How 
 unfeeling I am, throwing my light-heartedness at you 
 in this way, when things are going so badly with 
 you/' 
 
 " Unfeeling? Why, child, I love to see you rejoic- 
 ing in the bright happiness of your youth and glowing 
 spirits. I would not have you otherwise for all the 
 world." 
 
 100 
 
DARK DAYS. 
 
 " No, I ought not to feel that way just now, when 
 you when so many all round us are passing through 
 such a dreadfully anxious and critical time. Tell me, 
 Laurence, are things brightening for you even a 
 little?" - , . , , 
 
 "Not even a little; the case is all tft e* ; dti?et- Way. 
 But don't you think about it, child. B<e happy -white 
 you can and as long as you can. It 'is 'the' ivo'rst 
 possible philosophy to afflict yourself over the woes 
 of other people." 
 
 Now the tears did indeed well to Lilith's eyes, but 
 assuredly this time they were not tears of joy and 
 thankfulness. One or two even fell. 
 
 " Don't sneer, Laurence. You must keep the satire 
 and cynicism for all the world, if you will, but keep 
 the inner side of your nature for me," said she, and in 
 the sweet, pleading ring in her voice there was no 
 lack of feeling now. " You have had about ten times 
 more than your share of all the dark and bitter side 
 of life. You will not refuse my sympathy my deep- 
 est, most heartfelt sympathy will you, dear? Ah, 
 would that it were only of any use at all ! " 
 
 " Your sympathy? Why, I value and prize it more 
 than anything else in the world in fact it is the only 
 thing in the world I do value. ' Of any use at all?' 
 It is of some use of incalculable use, perhaps." 
 
 A smile lit up the clouded sadness of her face. 
 
 " If I only thought that," she said. " Still it's more 
 than sweet to hear you say so. Tell me, Laurence, 
 what was the strange sympathetic magnetism that 
 existed between us from the very first yes, long be- 
 fore we talked together? I was conscious of it, if 
 
 101 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 you were not a sympathy that makes it easy for me 
 to follow you, when you talk so darkly that nobody 
 else could." 
 
 " Oh, there is such a sympathy, then?" 
 
 " ,Qf cpurse there is, and you know it." 
 ^Perhaps: Tell me, Lilith, do you still cherish 
 certain fusty and antiquated superstitions which make 
 chat good results and beneficial can never come out 
 of abstract wrong? Abstract wrong being for present 
 purposes a mere conventionality." 
 
 She looked at him for a moment. The interchange 
 of that steady silent glance was sufficient. 
 
 " No, I do not," she said. 
 
 " I thought not. Well, that being so, you can per- 
 haps realize of what ' use/ as you put it, that sweetest 
 gift of your deepest, most heartfelt sympathy may be 
 to its object, and in its results wholly beneficial. Do 
 you follow? " 
 
 " Why, of course. And is it really in my power to 
 brighten life for you ever so little? Ah, that would 
 be happiness indeed." 
 
 " Continue to think so, then, for it is in your power 
 to do just that, and you are doing it at this moment. 
 And, child, when you feel that sense of boundless 
 elation with the joy of living, add this to the happi- 
 ness you are feeling, not to lessen but to enhance it." 
 
 " I will do that, Laurence," she said. " And if the 
 consciousness that you have what you say is of 
 use to you, let it be to strengthen you. Clear-headed, 
 strong as you are, dear, there must come hours of 
 terrible gloom, even to you. Well, when such come 
 on, think of our talk to-day and strive to throw them 
 
 102 
 
DARK DAYS. 
 
 off because of it because of the strengthening influ- 
 ences of it." 
 
 Thus she spoke, bravely, but beneath her outwardly 
 sweet serenity a hard battle was being waged. She 
 was fighting with her innermost self; striving hard 
 to retain her self-control. She would not even raise 
 her eyes to his lest she should lose it, lest she should 
 betray herself. And all the while the chords of her 
 innermost being thrilled and quivered with an inde- 
 scribable tenderness, taking words within her mind: 
 " My Laurence, my love, my ideal, what would I not 
 do to brighten life for you you for whom life is all 
 too hard! I would draw down that life-weary head 
 till it rested on my breast; I would wind my arms 
 round your neck and whisper into your tired ear 
 words of comfort, and of soothing, and of lov^e. Ah, 
 how I would love you, care for you, shield your ear 
 from ever being hurt by a discordant word! And I 
 would draw your heart within mine to rest there, and 
 would feel life all too blissfully, ineffably sweet to 
 live." 
 
 His voice broke in upon her meditations, causing 
 her a very perceptible start, so rapt were they. 
 
 " What is the subject of your very deep thought, 
 my Lilith? Are you wreathing some strange and 
 hitherto unsuspected spell, sorceress?" 
 
 The tone, playful, half sad, nearly upset her self- 
 control then and there. Was it with design that, 
 after the first keen penetrating gaze, he half averted 
 his glance? 
 
 " I am afraid I am poor company," she said rather 
 lamely. " I must have been silent quite a long time. 
 
 103 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 I was thinking thinking out some knotty problem 
 which would draw down your superior lordship's 
 indulgent pity," with a flash of all her former bright 
 spirits. 
 
 "And its nature?" 
 
 " If you will promise not to sneer I'll tell you. 
 You will? Well, then, I was thinking whether I 
 would have that gold-yellow dress done up with 
 mauve sleeves or black, for Wednesday week." 
 
 Whether he believed her or not it was impossible 
 to determine from the demeanour wherewith this 
 statement was received. She was inclined to think 
 he did, which spoke volumes for his tactfulness; and 
 is it not of the very essence of that far too uncommon 
 virtue to impress your interlocutor with the convic- 
 tion that you believe exactly as he or she wants 
 you to? In point of fact, there was something heroic- 
 ally pathetic in the way in which each mind strove to 
 veil from the other its inner workings, while every 
 day showed more and more the impossibility of keep- 
 ing up the figment. 
 
 Yet, for all this, there were times when the posses- 
 sion, the certainty of Lilith's " sympathy " she had 
 called it, would fail to cheer, to strengthen. Darker 
 and darker grew the days, more hopeless the pros- 
 pect, and soon Laurence Stanninghame found himself 
 not merely face to face with poverty, but on the actual 
 verge of destitution. Grim, fell spectres haunted his 
 waking hours no less than his dreams. Did he return 
 from a few hours of hard exercise with a fine appetite, 
 that healthy possession served but to remind him how 
 soon he would be without the means of gratifying it. 
 
 104 
 
DARK DAYS. 
 
 He pictured himself utterly destitute, and through 
 his sleeping visions would loom hideous spectres of 
 want and degradation. Day or night, waking or 
 sleeping, it was ever the same; the horror of the posi- 
 tion was ever before him and would not be laid. His 
 mind was a hell to him, his heart of lead, his hard, 
 clear brain deadly, self-pitiless in its purpose. Obvi- 
 ously, there was no further room in the world for 
 such as he. 
 
 105 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL. 
 
 'To sell my immortal soul, twenty times over, for a 
 few thousands of the damnation stuff; but as that 
 article isn't negotiable, why, better make an end of 
 the whole bother." 
 
 Thus Laurence to himself, though unconsciously 
 aloud. His room was an end one on the stoep, and 
 the door was open. The time was the middle of the 
 morning, and he sat thinking. 
 
 His thoughts were black and bitter as how indeed 
 should they be otherwise? He had come to this 
 place to make one final effort to retrieve his fortunes. 
 That effort had failed. He had put what little re- 
 mained to him into various companies awaiting the 
 boom and no boom had ensued. On the contrary, 
 things had never looked more dead than at this 
 moment, never since the Rand had been opened up. 
 The bulk of the scrip owned by him was now barely 
 saleable at any price; for the residue he might have 
 obtained a quarter of the price he had paid for it. He 
 was ruined. 
 
 He was not alone in this not by a very large 
 number. But what sort of consolation was that? He 
 had received letters too by the last mail. Money! 
 money! That was their burden. He tossed them 
 aside half read. What mattered anything? The 
 accursed luck which had followed him throughout 
 
 106 
 
HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL. 
 
 life had stuck to him most consistently would do 
 so until the end. The end? Ha, had not " the end " 
 come? What more was left? More squalor, more 
 deterioration gradually dragging him down, down. 
 Heaven knew what he might come to, what final 
 degradation might not be his. The end? Yes, better 
 let it be the end now, here while in the full posses- 
 sion of his faculties, in the full possession of the dig- 
 nity of his self-respect. The dead blank hopelessness 
 of life! Better end it, now, here. 
 
 He rose and went to the open door. All was 
 quiet. The occupants of the other rooms were away, 
 drowning their cares in liquor saloons, or feverishly 
 hanging around 'Change to grasp at any possible 
 straw. He was about to close the door. No, it had 
 better remain as it was. The thing would look more 
 accidental that way. 
 
 He returned into the room, and unlocking his 
 portmanteau, took out a six-shooter. It was loaded 
 in every chamber, for in those days such a companion 
 was not far from a necessity in the great restless gold- 
 town. He sat down at the table, and, placing the 
 weapon in front of him, passed his fingers up and 
 down the blue shiny metal in a strange, half-medita- 
 tive way. Then, grasping the butt, he placed the 
 muzzle against his forehead. 
 
 The hard metal imprinted a cold ring just between 
 the eyes. He did not flinch at the grisly contact. 
 His hand was as firm as a rock. He must depress 
 the muzzle just a trifle it would make more certain. 
 He began to press the trigger, ever so faintly, then 
 a little more firmly, strangely wondering how much 
 
 107 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 more imperceptible a degree of pressure would be 
 required to produce the roaring, shattering shock 
 which should whirl him into the dark night of Death. 
 
 Well, but afterwards? Who knew? If it were 
 as they taught, even then it could be no augmenta- 
 tion of the hopelessness of this life. Perhaps they 
 might make a devil of him, he thought, with grim 
 satisfaction, as a black wave of hatred towards 
 humanity at large surged through his brain. In that 
 eventuality his role of tormentor as well as tormented 
 would be a congenial one. 
 
 The dark night of death! What would it matter 
 about money then, and all the sordid and pitiful 
 wretchednesses entailed by the want of it? A leap 
 in the dark! It held all the excitement of an un- 
 known adventure to the man who sat there, pressing 
 the muzzle of the deadly weapon hard against his 
 forehead. The additional pressure of so much as a 
 hair's weight upon that trigger now! 
 
 Could it be that the man's guardian angel was with 
 him still, that a saving presence really hovered about 
 him in the prosaic noonday? A strange chord seemed 
 to thrill and vibrate within his brain, bringing before 
 his vision the face of Lilith Ormskirk. There it was, 
 as he had beheld it but a few days since; but now the 
 sweet eyes were troubled, as though clouded with 
 pain and bitter disappointment. 
 
 " You, whom I thought so strong, are weak after 
 all! You, to whom I loved to listen as the very ideal 
 of a well-balanced mind and judgment, are about to 
 do what will stamp your memory forever as that of 
 one who was insane! Have I been no more to you 
 
 108 
 
HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL. 
 
 than that I who thought to have brightened and 
 strengthened your life all that within me lay? It can- 
 not be! You shall not do it." 
 
 He could not. The voice thrilled to his hearing, 
 as plainly, as articulately as it had ever done when 
 she had stood before him. He laid down the weapon, 
 and passed his hand in a dazed sort of manner over 
 his brows. Laurence Stanninghame was saved. 
 
 He stared around, somewhat unsteadily, as though 
 more than half expecting to behold her there in the 
 room. What did it all mean? At any rate she had 
 saved him. Was it for good or for ill? Then the full 
 irony of the position struck upon his satirical soul. 
 His mind went back over his acquaintance with Lilith. 
 What if his disillusioning had been a little less com- 
 plete? What if he had fled the rich attractiveness of 
 her presence, had shunned her with heroic scrupu- 
 lousness, acting from some fiddle-faddle notion of 
 so-called " honour " ? Just this, he, Laurence Stan- 
 ninghame, would at that moment be lying a lifeless 
 thing, with brains scattered all over the room a 
 memory, a standing monument of commonplace 
 weakness. But she had saved him from this had 
 saved him as surely and completely as though she 
 had struck the weapon from his hand. Was it for 
 good or for ill? 
 
 He fell thinking again. Had he indeed played his 
 last card, or did one more solitary trump yet lurk up 
 his sleeve unknown to himself? No, it could not be; 
 and his thoughts grew dark again. Yet he was safe 
 now safe from himself. Lilith had done it her 
 influence, her love! 
 
 109 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 He thought long and thought hard, but still hope- 
 lessly. And again, unconsciously, he broke out -into 
 soliloquy. 
 
 " Yes, I'd sell my soul to the devil himself! " 
 
 " Maybe the old man would be dead off the deal. 
 Likely he reckons you a dead cert, already, Stanning- 
 hame." 
 
 Laurence did not start at the voice, which was that 
 of Hazon, whose shadow darkened the door. The 
 up-country man at that moment especially noticed 
 that he did not. 
 
 " Dare say you're right, Hazon," was the reply. 
 " That's it, come in," which the other had already 
 
 done. "Talking out loud, was I? It's a d bad 
 
 habit, and grows on one." 
 
 " It does. Say, though, what game were you up 
 to with that plaything? " glancing meaningly at the 
 six-shooter lying on the table. 
 
 " This? Oh, I thought likely it wanted cleaning." 
 
 "So?" and the corners of Hazon's saturnine 
 mouth drooped in ever so faint a grin as his keen eyes 
 fixed themselves for a moment full upon the other's 
 face. Laurence had forgotten the tell-tale imprint 
 left in the centre of his forehead by the muzzle. 
 " So? See here, Stanninghame, don't be at the 
 trouble to invent any more sick old lies, but put the 
 thing away. It might go off. Don't mind me; I've 
 been through* the same stage myself." 
 
 " Have you? How did it feel, eh? " said Laurence, 
 with a sort of weary imperturbability, filling his pipe 
 and pushing the pouch across the table to his friend. 
 
 " Bad. Ah, that's right! Instead of fooling about 
 no 
 
HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL. 
 
 cleaning ' guns at such times, fill your pipe. That's 
 the right lay, depend upon it." 
 
 Laurence made no reply, but lighting up, puffed 
 away in silence. His thoughts were wandering from 
 Hazon. 
 
 " Broke, eh? " queried the latter sententiously. 
 
 " Stony." 
 
 " So? Ah, I knew it 'd come; I knew it 'd come." 
 
 This remark, redolent as it was of that sort of cheap 
 prophecy which consists of being wise after the event, 
 Laurence did not deem worthy of answer. 
 
 " And I was waiting for it to come," pursued 
 Hazon. " Say, now, why not make a trip up country 
 with me?" 
 
 " That sounds likely, doesn't it? Didn't I just tell 
 you I was stony broke?" 
 
 " You did. The very reason why I made my pro- 
 posal." 
 
 " Don't see it. If I were to sell out every rag of 
 my scrip now, I couldn't raise enough to pay my shot 
 towards the outfit. And I couldn't even render 
 service in kind, for I've had no experience of waggons 
 and all that sort of thing. So where does it come in? " 
 
 " It does come in. You can render service in kind 
 darned much so. I don't want you to pay any shot 
 towards the outfit. See here, Stanninghame, if you 
 go up country with me now, you'll come back a fairly 
 rich man, or " 
 
 "Or what?" 
 
 " You'll never come back at all." 
 
 In spite of his normal imperturbability, Laurence 
 was conscious of a quickening of the pulses, The 
 
 in 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 suggestion of adventure of an adventure on a mag- 
 nificent scale, and with magnificent results if success- 
 ful, as conveyed in the other's reply, caused the blood 
 to surge hotly through his frame. He had been 
 strangely drawn towards this dark, reticent, solitary 
 individual, beneath whose quiet demeanour lurked 
 such a suggestion of force and power, who shunned 
 the friendship of all even as all shunned his, who had 
 been moderately intimate even with none but himself. 
 This wonderful land the dim, mysterious recesses of 
 its interior what possibilities did it not hold? And 
 in groping into such possibilities this, above all others, 
 was the comrade he would have chosen to have at his 
 side. Not that he had forgotten the words of dark 
 warning spoken by Rainsford and others, but at such 
 he laughed. 
 
 "Are you taking it on any? " queried Hazon, after 
 a pause of silence on the part of both. 
 
 " I am. I don't mind telling you, Hazon, that life, 
 so far as I am concerned, was no great thing before." 
 
 " I guessed as much," assented the other, with a 
 nod of the head. 
 
 " Quite. Now, I'm broke, stony broke, and it's 
 more than ever a case of stealing away to hang one's 
 self in a well. I tell you squarely, I'd walk into the 
 jaws of the devil I^mself to effect the capture of the 
 oof-bird." 
 
 " Yes? How are your nerves, Stanninghame? " 
 
 " Hard hard as nails now. That's not to say they 
 have been always." 
 
 " Quite so. Ever seen a man's head cut off? " 
 
 " Two." 
 
 112 
 
HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL. 
 
 " So? Where was that? " said Hazon, ever so 
 faintly surprised at receiving an affirmative reply. 
 
 " In Paris. A press friend of mine had to go and 
 see two fellows guillotined, and managed to work me 
 in with him. We were as close to the machine, too, 
 as it was possible to get." 
 
 " Did it make you feel sick at all? " 
 
 " Not any. The other Johnny took it pretty badly, 
 though. I had to fill him up with cocktails before he 
 could eat any breakfast." 
 
 " That's a very good test. I never expected you 
 to say you had stood it. Well, you may see a little 
 more in that line before we come through. Can't 
 make omelettes without breaking eggs though, as the 
 French say. Well now, Stanninghame, I've had my 
 eye on you ever since you came up here. I'm pretty 
 good at reading people, and I read you. ' That's the 
 man for me,' I said to myself. ' He's come to the end 
 of his tether. He's just at that stage of life when it's 
 kill or cure, and he means kill or cure.' ' : 
 
 " Well, we had talked enough together to let you 
 into that much, eh, Hazon?" said Laurence, with a 
 laugh which was not altogether free from a dash of 
 scepticism. 
 
 " We have. Still, I'm not gassing when I tell you 
 I knew all about it before. How? you want to ask. 
 Because I've been through it all myself. I thought, 
 1 That chap is throwing his last card ; if he loses, he's 
 my man.' And you have lost." 
 
 " But what's the object of the trip, Hazon? Gold? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Stones?" 
 
 113 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 " Not stones." 
 
 "Ivory, then?" 
 
 " That's it; ivory," and a gleam of saturnine mirth 
 shot across the other's dark features. 
 
 " You have to go a good way up for that now, don't 
 you, Hazon? " 
 
 " Yes, a good way up. And it's contraband." 
 
 "The devil it is!" 
 
 Hazon nodded. Then he went to the door and 
 looked out. 
 
 " Leave it open. It's better so. We can hear any 
 one coming," he said, returning. " And now, Stan- 
 ninghame, listen carefully, and we'll talk out the 
 scheme. If you're on, well and good; if you're dead 
 off it, why, I told you I had read you, and you're not 
 the man to let drop by word or hint to a living soul 
 any of what has passed between us." 
 
 " Quite right, Hazon. You never formed a safer 
 judgment in your life." 
 
 Then, for upwards of an hour, the pair talked 
 together; and when the luncheon bell rang, and 
 Laurence Stanninghame took his seat at the table 
 along with the rest, to talk scrip in the scathingly 
 despondent way in which the darling topic was con- 
 versationally dealt with in these days, he was con- 
 scious that he had turned the corner of a curious 
 psychological crisis in his life. 
 
 In the afternoon he took his way down to Booyseus. 
 Would he find Lilith in? It was almost too much 
 good luck to hope to find her alone. As he walked, 
 he was filled with a strange elation. The dull pain 
 
 114 
 
HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL. 
 
 of a very near parting was largely counteracted by 
 the manner of it. Such a parting had been before his 
 mind for long; but then he would have gone forth 
 broken down, ruined, more utterly without hope in 
 life than ever. Now it was different. He was going 
 forth upon an adventure fraught with all manner of 
 stirring potentialities one from which he would re- 
 turn wealthy, or, as his friend and thenceforth com- 
 rade had said, one from whicfy he would not return 
 at all. 
 
 Had his luck already begun to turn, he thought? 
 As he mounted the stoep Lilith herself came forth to 
 meet him. It struck him that the omen was a good 
 one. 
 
 " Why, you are becoming quite a stranger," she 
 said. But the note of gladness underlying the re- 
 proach did not escape him, nor a certain lighting up 
 of her face as they clasped hands, with the subtile 
 lingering pressure now never absent from that out- 
 wardly formal method of greeting. 
 
 "Am I?" he answered, thinking how soon, how 
 very soon, he would become one in reality. " But 
 you were going out? " For she had on her hat and 
 gloves, and carried a sunshade. 
 
 " I was. You are only just in time only just. 
 But I won't now that you have come." 
 
 " On the contrary, I want you to. I want you to 
 come out with me, and at once, before an irruption of 
 bores renders that manoeuvre impracticable. Will 
 you?" 
 
 " Of course I will. Which way shall we go? Up 
 to the town?" 
 
 "5 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 " Not much. Right in the opposite direction, and 
 as far away from it as possible. Are you alone?" 
 
 " Not quite alone. Aunt is having her afternoon 
 sleep; but May and George went to the town this 
 morning. They intended to have lunch at the Steven- 
 sons*, and then go on to the cricket ground. There's 
 a match or something on to-day. George was cross 
 because I wouldn't go too ; but I had a touch of head- 
 ache, and went to sleap instead. And oh, Laurence, 
 I had such a horrible dream. It was about you." 
 
 " Oh, was it?" The words rapped themselves out 
 quickly, nervously, more so than she had ever heard 
 him talk before. But the awful and ghastly crisis of 
 the morning was recalled by her words. "About 
 me? Tell it to me." 
 
 " I can't. It was all rather vague, and y.et so real. 
 I dreamed that you were in the face of some strange, 
 some horrible danger, against which I was powerless 
 to warn you. I struggled to, even prayed. Then I 
 was able. I warned you, and the danger seemed to 
 pass. And oh, Laurence, I woke up crying!" 
 
 " Your dream was a true one, my Lilith. No, I 
 will not tell you how or in what way. And will you 
 always be empowered to warn me to save me, my 
 sweet guardian angel? I shall need it often enough 
 during the next er in the time that is coming." 
 
 His face had taken on an unwonted expression, 
 and his tones were suspiciously husky. Lilith looked 
 wonderingly at him, and her own expression was 
 grave and earnest. The sweet eyes became dewy 
 with unshed tears. 
 
 " You know I will, if I may," she answered, steal- 
 
 116 
 
HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL. 
 
 ing a hand into his for a sympathetic pressure, as they 
 walked side by side. 
 
 They had been walking at a good pace over the 
 open, treeless veldt, and the roofs of Booyseus were 
 now quite dwarfed behind them. 
 
 " But, tell me," she continued, " are things any 
 better? Oh, it is dreadful that you should have come 
 all this way only to be more completely ruined than 
 before dreadful! I am always thinking about it. 
 Yet I am of a hopeful disposition, as I told you. I 
 never despair. Things will take a turn. They must." 
 
 " They have taken a turn, Lilith, but not in the 
 direction you mean. I am going away." 
 
 She started. She knew that those words must one 
 day be spoken. Now that they had been, they hurt. 
 
 "Back to England?" 
 
 The words came out breathlessly, and with a sort 
 of gasp. 
 
 " No, not there. I am going up country, into the 
 interior." 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 There was relief in the ejaculation. For the mo- 
 ment she lost sight of all that was involved by such a 
 destination. They would still be in the same land. 
 That was something or seemed so. 
 
 Now all the latent instincts, never half drawn forth, 
 surged like molten volcano fires through Laurence 
 Stanninghame's soul. The dead and stormy nature, 
 slain within him, revivified, burst forth into warm, 
 pulsating, struggling, rebellious life. This striving of 
 heart against heart, this desperate effort still to patch 
 up the rents in the flimsy veil, moved him infinitely. 
 
 117 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 The veldt on the Witwatersrand is as open and devoid 
 of cover as a billiard-table. The two were visible for 
 miles. But for this he knew not what he might have 
 done rather he knew full well what he certainly 
 would have done. 
 
 They took refuge in practical topics; they talked 
 of the up-country trip. 
 
 " You are very friendly with that Mr. Hazon, are 
 you not, Laurence? Nobody else is, and there are 
 strange stories, not told, but hinted about him. He 
 is a man I should be almost afraid of, and yet half 
 admire. He strikes me as one who would be a ter- 
 rible and relentless enemy, but as true as steel, true 
 to self-sacrificing point, to a friend." 
 
 " That's exactly my opinion. Now, Hazon and I 
 suit each other down to the ground. I have an 
 especial faculty, remember, for getting on with un- 
 popular individuals." 
 
 Thus they talked, and at length time forced them 
 to turn their steps homeward. And as the sun rays 
 began to slant golden upon the surrounding veldt, it 
 seemed to Laurence that even that triste wilderness 
 took on a glow that was more than of earth. How 
 that afternoon, that walk, would dwell within his 
 memory, stamped there indelibly! He thought how 
 the day had opened, of that gnawing mental struggle 
 culminating in what? But for this girl at his side 
 he would now be what? She had saved him, she 
 alone her confidence in him, her high opinion of 
 him, and her love. Yes, her love. He looked upon 
 her as she walked beside him, entrancing beyond 
 words in her rich, warm beauty, a perfect dream of 
 
 118 
 
HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL. 
 
 grace and symmetry. Even the hot sunlight seemed 
 to linger, as with a kiss, upon the dark, brilliant loveli- 
 ness of her eyes, on the soft curve of her lips. 
 
 " You are cruel, sorceress," he broke forth. " You 
 have made yourself look especially enchanting be- 
 cause soon I shall see you no more. You are looking 
 perfect." 
 
 She flashed a bright smile upon him, but it seemed 
 to fade into a shadow, as of pain. 
 
 "Am I? Well, Laurence, one knows instinctively 
 when one is looking one's best. It would be affecta- 
 tion to pretend otherwise. And I love to make 
 myself look bright and sweet and attractive for you. 
 And now oh, dear, we are nearly home again. 
 Come in with me now and stay the evening. We 
 shall not be alone together again, I fear this even- 
 ing, I mean. But you will be going away so soon 
 now, and I must see as much of you as I can." 
 
 He needed no persuasion. And as Lilith had said, 
 they were not alone together again. But even the 
 jealous George, who came back from the town more 
 cantankerous than ever on learning of this addition, 
 found balm in Gilead. That brute Stanninghame 
 was going away up-country soon, he put it. Heaven 
 send a convenient shot of malaria or a providential 
 assegai prod to keep him there forever! 
 
 119 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 PREPARATION. 
 
 THE days went by and Hazon's preparations were 
 nearly completed, and it became patent to the Rand at 
 large that " The Pirate " intended to relieve that de- 
 lusive locality of his unwelcome presence; for a 
 couple of waggons appeared on the scene, bearing his 
 name, and in charge of a mysterious native of 
 vast proportions and forbidding physiognomy, who 
 seemed not to be indigenous to those parts, nor, in- 
 deed, to hail from anywhere around. And Hazon, in 
 his quiet, thorough way, was very busy in fitting out 
 these waggons, loading them with articles suitable for 
 up-country trade, eke with munitions of sport, and, 
 if need be, war. Wherein he was ably assisted by 
 Laurence Stanninghame. 
 
 On learning that the latter was a party to the 
 undertaking, whatever it was, the Rand shrugged its 
 shoulders, and whispered; and the burden of its 
 whispering consisted mainly of the ancient innuendo 
 relating to those who had heretofore accompanied 
 Hazon anywhere. This one would he not travel 
 the same dark road as others had done, whatever that 
 road might be? But that was his own lookout, and 
 he had been warned. And the two men would hold 
 long and earnest confabs together; but those which 
 
 120 
 
PREPARATION. 
 
 were the most earnest were held in the course of long 
 rides away into the veldt. Then they would dis- 
 mount at some sequestered spot, where, secure from 
 all interruption, weather-beaten maps and plans and 
 darkly written memos., also ciphers, would be pro- 
 duced and long and carefully discussed. Of this, 
 however, the Rand knew nothing; yet from such 
 Laurence would return feeling a trifle graver, for even 
 he had to accustom himself to such a road to wealth 
 as was here held out. But his case was desperate. 
 He was utterly ruined, and to the same extent reck- 
 less. It was sink or swim, and not his was the mind 
 to elect to go under when the jettison of a last linger- 
 ing scruple or two would keep him afloat. As for 
 potential nay, certain risk, that did not enter into 
 his calculations. 
 
 Now, while these preparations were in progress, 
 Holmes was going about with a very gloomy counte- 
 nance; more than hinting, indeed, at a desire to take 
 part in the trip. Finally, he put it plainly to Lau- 
 rence himself. 
 
 " Take my advice and watch it," the latter decisively 
 replied. Then remembering that the ostensible 
 object of the undertaking was sport and native trade, 
 he went on, " You see, Holmes, it's going to be a hard 
 business. Not just three or four months up in the 
 bush-veldt and so forth, but well, Heaven only 
 knows where the thing will end, let alone how." 
 
 " I don't care about that. Why, it's just the very 
 thing that '11 suit me down to the ground. I say, 
 Stanninghame, I know you don't mind, but Hazon? 
 I've always stood up for Hazon, and we seem to get 
 
 121 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 on all right? Do put it to Hazon. I could pay my 
 shot, of course." 
 
 There was a despondency of manner and tone that 
 was extremely foreign to the mercurial Holmes, and 
 this, together with certain signs he had read of late, 
 caused Laurence to look up with a queer half smile. 
 
 " Why are you so anxious to clear from here, 
 Holmes? Rather sudden, isn't it? " 
 
 " Oh, I'm dead off waiting for a ' boom ' that never 
 comes. It's dashed sickening, don't you know." 
 
 " It is. And what else is dashed sickening? That 
 isn't all." 
 
 The other stared for a moment, then, as though he 
 were bringing it out with an effort, he burst forth: 
 
 " Oh, well, hang it all, Stanninghame, I don't see 
 why I shouldn't tell you. The fact is I've I've got 
 the chuck." 
 
 Laurence laughed inwardly. He understood. 
 
 " Why, I thought you were bringing it on all right," 
 he said. 
 
 " So did I ; but when I put it to her, she was dead 
 off," said Holmes, disconsolately savage. 
 
 "Sure?" 
 
 " Cert." 
 
 " Well, give her another show. Some women 
 girls especially like that sort of application twice 
 over. They think it enhances their value in some 
 inexplicable way," said Laurence, with a touch of 
 characteristic satire. " I don't, but that's a matter of 
 opinion. And, I don't want to hurt your feelings, 
 Holmes, but is this one worth it? " 
 
 " I don't know," answered the other savagely, 
 
 122 
 
PREPARATION. 
 
 driving his heel into the ground. " It's that beast 
 Barstow. What the deuce she can see in him, bangs 
 me." 
 
 " Yes, unless it is that you hold a quantity of un- 
 saleable scrip and he doesn't," rejoined Laurence, 
 who had been secretly amused in watching the prog- 
 ress of pretty Mabel Falkner's latest preference. 
 " But in any case I think you'd better not touch it, 
 or you'll find yourself on the one horn or other of this 
 dilemma ; if she is coming the ' playing off ' trick, 
 why, that is despicable, and in fact not good enough; 
 if she means business, why, you can't go begging to 
 her for what she has given to the other Johnny with- 
 out any begging at all. See?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, I see," was the rueful rejoinder. " By 
 the Lord, Stanninghame, I used to think you a deuced 
 snarling, cynical beggar at first, but now, 'pon my 
 soul, I believe you're right." 
 
 " Do you? Well, then, you don't want to go 
 away up-country and get bowled out with fever or 
 struck by a nigger, and all that sort of thing, because 
 one girl don't care a cent for you." 
 
 " Perhaps not. Still, I hate this place now. I'm 
 sick of it. By the way, Stanninghame, you're the 
 sort a fellow can tell anything to; you don't start a 
 lot of cheap blatant chaff as some chappies do when 
 you want them to talk sound sense." 
 
 There was a great deal underlying the remark, also 
 the tone. Though lacking the elements which go to 
 make up the " popular " man, Laurence possessed 
 the faculty of winning the devoted attachment of indi- 
 viduals, and that to an extent of which he himself little 
 
 123 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 dreamed. Not the least important item which went 
 to make up that attribute lay in the fact that he was 
 a most indulgent listener, whom nothing astonished, 
 and who could look at all sides of any given question 
 with the tact and toleration of a man who thinks. 
 This faculty he seldom exercised, and then almost un- 
 consciously. 
 
 To the other's remark he made no immediate reply. 
 Taking into consideration age and temperament, he 
 had.no belief that Holmes' rejection and disappoint- 
 ment had left any deep wound. Still, it had come 
 at an unfortunate time a time when the sufferer, in 
 common with most of them, had been hard hit in a 
 more material way. He had a genuine liking for the 
 sunny-natured, open-hearted youth; a liking be- 
 gotten, it might be, of the ingenuously unconscious 
 manner in which the latter looked up to him, in fact, 
 made a sort of elder brother of him. Holmes was 
 no stronger-headed than most youngsters of his 
 temperament and circumstances, and Laurence did 
 not want to see him soured and dejected by disap- 
 pointment all round throw himself in with the reck- 
 less, indiscriminate bar-frequenter, of whom there 
 were not lacking woeful examples in those days, 
 though, poor fellows, much from the same motive, to 
 drown care; and into this current would Holmes in 
 all probability be swept if left by himself in Johannes- 
 burg. Was there no method of taking him with 
 them for a month or two's shoot in the bush-veldt, 
 and sending him back by some returning expedition 
 before the serious part of the undertaking was entered 
 upon? He decided to sound Hazon upon the matter, 
 
 124 
 
PREPARATION. 
 
 yet of this resolve he said nothing now to Holmes. 
 The latter broke the silence. 
 
 "By Jove, Stanninghame, I envy you!' he said. 
 " You are such a hard-headed chap. Why, I don't 
 
 believe you care a little d for any mortal thing in 
 
 the world. Yes, I envy you." 
 
 " You needn't, if it means hankering after the pro- 
 cess by which that blissful state is attained. But you 
 are wrong. I care most infernally about one thing." 
 
 "And what's that? What is it, old chap? You 
 needn't be afraid I'll let on!" said Holmes eagerly, 
 anticipating it might be something similar in the way 
 of a confidence to that which his own exuberant heart 
 had not been able to refrain from making. 
 
 " Why, that I was stewed idiot enough to go on 
 investing in this infernal scrip instead of clearing out 
 just when I had made the modest profit of four hun- 
 dred per cent." 
 
 " Oh ! " said the other, in disappointed surprise, 
 adding, " But you don't show it. You take it smiling, 
 Stanninghame. You don't turn a hair." 
 
 "H'm!" 
 
 With the ejaculation, Laurence was thinking of a 
 certain room, shaded from the glare of the sunlight 
 without, and of a very grim moment indeed. He 
 was looking, too, at the 'hearty, bright-mannered 
 youngster who had already begun to forget his recent 
 disappointment in the prospect of adventure and 
 novelty. He himself had been nearly as light- 
 hearted, just as ready to mirth and laughter at that 
 age. Yet now? Would it be the same with this 
 one? Who could say? 
 
 125 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 The suggestion that Holmes should accompany 
 the expedition was not received with enthusiasm by 
 Hazon, neither did it meet with immediate and 
 decisive repudiation. Characteristically, Hazon pro- 
 ceeded to argue out the matter pro and con. 
 
 " He doesn't know the real nature of our business, 
 Stanninghame? no, of course not. Thinks it's only 
 a shooting trip? good. Well, the question is, are 
 we dead certain of finding opportunities for sending 
 hirr jack; for we can't turn him loose on the veldt 
 and say good-bye? " 
 
 " There are several places where we might drop 
 him," said Laurence, consulting a map and mention- 
 ing a few. 
 
 " Quite so. Well, here's another consideration. 
 He's a youngster, and probably has scores of relations 
 more or less interested in him. We don't want to 
 draw down inquiries and investigations into our move- 
 ments and affairs." 
 
 " That won't count seriously, Hazon." 
 
 " Think not? Um! Well then, what if we were to 
 take him along run him into the whole shoot 
 with us?" 
 
 "Phew! That's a horse whose colour I've never 
 scrutinized. And the point? " 
 
 " Might help us in more ways than one; in case of 
 difficulties afterwards, I mean. The idea seems to 
 knock you out some, Stanninghame?" 
 
 There was something in it. Laurence, reckless, 
 unscrupulous as he was, could not but hesitate. In 
 striving to save his young friend from one form of 
 ruin, was it written that he should plunge him into 
 
 126 
 
PREPARATION. 
 
 another more irretrievable, more sweeping, more 
 lifelong? 
 
 " I am thinking he might give us trouble," he re- 
 plied deliberately. " What if he sickened of the 
 whole business, and kicked just when we wanted to 
 pull together the most? No, no, Hazon. If we take 
 him at all, we must send him back as I say. It's all 
 very well for us two, but it doesn't seem quite the 
 thing to run a fresh-hearted youngster, with all his 
 life before him, and bursting with hopes and ideals, 
 into a grim business of this kind. But taking him, 
 or leaving him, rests with you entirely." 
 
 " Leave it that way, then. I'll think it over and 
 see if it pans out any," said Hazon, leisurely lighting 
 a fresh pipe. " But, Stanninghame, what's this?" he 
 added, with a sudden, keen glance out of his piercing 
 eyes. " You are letting yourself go with regard to 
 this matter showing feeling. That won't do, you 
 know. You've got to have no sample of that sort of 
 goods about you, no more than can be put into a 
 block of granite. Aren't you in training yet? " 
 
 " Well, I think so ; or, at any rate, shall be long 
 before it is wanted seriously." 
 
 No more was said on the subject then. 
 
 As the preparations progressed, and the time for 
 the start drew near, it seemed to Laurence Stanning- 
 hame that more and more was the old life a mere 
 dream, a dream of the past. Sometimes in his sleep 
 he would be back in it, would see the dinginess of the 
 ramshackle semi-detached, would hear the vulgar 
 sounds of the vulgar suburban street; and he would 
 
 127 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 turn uneasily in his dreams, with a depressing con- 
 sciousness of dust and discord, and a blank wall as of 
 the hopelessness of life drawn across his path. Feel- 
 ing? Pooh! Who would miss him out of the tradi- 
 tional " charm " of the family circle? A new toy, 
 costing an extra shilling or so, would quite knock out 
 all and any recollection of himself. There were times 
 when in his dreams he had even returned to the 
 domestic ark, and in the result a day of welcome and 
 comparative peace, then discord and jangling strife as 
 before, and the ever weighing-down, depressing, 
 crushing consciousness of squalid penury for the rest 
 of his natural life. From such visions he had awak- 
 ened, awakened with a start of exultant gratulation, to 
 find the glow of the African sun streaming into the 
 room; every nerve tingling with a consciousness of 
 strength and braced-up vigour; his mind rejoicing to 
 look forward into the boundless possibilities held out 
 by the adventure in which he was involved ; that other 
 ghastly horror, which had haunted him for so long, 
 now put far away. Risk, excitement, peril, daring, 
 to be rewarded by wealth, after long years of un- 
 natural stagnation. The prospect opened out a vista 
 as of boundless delight. 
 
 Yet was this dashed dashed by an impending part- 
 ing. The certainty of this would ever intrude and 
 quench his exultation. Sweet Lilith! how she had 
 subtilely intertwined herself within his life! Well, he 
 was strong; he could surely keep himself in hand. It 
 should be a part of his training. Still, though the 
 certainty of impending separation would quench his 
 exultation, on awakening to the light of each new day, 
 
 128 
 
PREPARATION. 
 
 which brought that parting nearer, yet there was 
 another certainty, that at least a portion of every such 
 day should be spent with her. 
 
 But even he, with all his strength, with all his fore- 
 sight, little realized what the actual moment of that 
 parting should mean. 
 
 129 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 HE was there to say good-bye. 
 
 As he sat waiting, the soft subdued hush of the 
 shaded room, in its cool fragrance, struck upon his 
 senses as with an influence of depression, of sadness, 
 of loss. He had come to bid farewell. Farewell! 
 Now the moment had arrived he, somehow, felt it. 
 
 Would she never come in? His nerves seemed all 
 on edge, and ever upon the glowing midday heat, the 
 jarring thump of the Crown Reef battery beat its 
 monotonous time. Then the door opened softly, and 
 Lilith entered. 
 
 Never had she seemed to look more sweet, more 
 inviting. The rich, dark beauty, always more en- 
 thralling, more captivating when warmed by the 
 constant kiss of its native southern sun; the starry 
 eyes, wide with earnestness; the sad, sweet expression 
 of the wistful lips; the glorious splendour of the per- 
 fect form, in its cool, creamy white draperies. 
 Laurence Stanninghame, gazing upon her, realized 
 with a dull, dead ache at the heart, that all his self- 
 boasted strength was but the veriest weakness. And 
 now he had come to say farewell. 
 
 " I can hardly realize that we shall not see each 
 other again," Lilith said, after a transparently feeble 
 
 130 
 
"AT THE TWELFTH HOUR." 
 
 attempt or two on the part of both of them to talk 
 on indifferent subjects. " When do you expect to 
 return? How long will you be away? " 
 
 " ' It may be for years, and it may be for ever/ " 
 quoted Laurence, a bitter ring in his tone. "Probably 
 the latter." 
 
 " You must not say that. Remember what I told 
 you, more than once before. I am always hopeful, 
 I never despair, even when things look blackest 
 either for myself or other people. Though, I dare 
 say, you are laughing to yourself now at the idea of 
 things being anything but bright to me. Well, 
 then, I predict you will come back with what you 
 want. You will return rich, and all will look up then 
 for you." 
 
 She spoke lightly, smilingly. He, listening, gazing 
 at her, felt bitter. He had been mistaken. Well, he 
 had found out his mistake, only just in time only 
 just. But even he, with all his observant perceptive- 
 ness, had failed to penetrate Lilith's magnificent self- 
 command. 
 
 " Let us hope your prediction will prove a true, 
 one," he said, falling in with her supposed mood. 
 " The one thing to make life worth living is wealth. 
 I will stick at nothing to obtain it nothing! With- 
 out it, life is a hell; with it well, life is at one's feet. 
 There *is nothing one cannot do with it nothing." 
 
 His eyes glowed with a sombre light. There was 
 a world of repressed passion in his tone, the resent- 
 ful snarl, as he thought of the past squalor and bitter- 
 ness of life, mingling with the savage determination 
 and unscrupulous recklessness of the born adventurer. 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 " There is one thing you cannot obtain for it," she 
 said. " That is love." 
 
 " But it can bring you all that will cause you to 
 feel no longing for that deceptive illusion. You can 
 forget that such a thing exists can forget it in the 
 renewed exuberance of vitality which is sheer enjoy- 
 ment of living. Well, wish me luck. ' Good-bye ' 
 is a dreadful word, but it has to be said." 
 
 He had risen and stood blindly, half-bewilderedly. 
 The shaded room, the sensuous fragrance of her 
 presence, every graceful movement, the fascination 
 of the wide, earnest eyes, all was more than beginning 
 to intoxicate him, to shatter his chain-armour of 
 bitterness and self-control. He, the strong, the in- 
 vulnerable, the man in whom all heart and feeling 
 was dead what sorcery was this? He was be- 
 witched, entranced, enthralled. His strength was as 
 water. Yet not. 
 
 They stood facing each other, glance fused into 
 glance. At that moment heart seemed opened to 
 heart to be gazing therein. 
 
 " Good-bye," he said. " Don't quite forget me, 
 Lilith dear. Think a little now and then of the times 
 we have had together." Then their lips met in a long 
 kiss. And she said nothing. Perhaps she could 
 not. The flood-gate of an awful torrent of pent-up, 
 bravely controlled grief may be opened in the utter- 
 ance of that word " good-bye." 
 
 Laurence Stanninghame seemed to walk blindly, 
 staggering in the strong sunlight. Was it the midday 
 heat, or the strong glare? The ever-monotonous 
 
 132 
 
"AT THE TWELFTH HOUR." 
 
 beat of the Crown Reef stamps seemed to hammer 
 within his brain, which seethed and swirled with the 
 recollection of that last long kiss. He would not 
 look back. Impervious to the furnace-like heat, he 
 stepped out over the veldt at a pace which, by the 
 time he reached the corner of the Wemmer property, 
 caused him to look up wonderingly, that he should 
 already be entering the town. 
 
 " Oh, there you are, Stanninghame," sung out a 
 voice, whose owner nearly cannoned into him. Lau- 
 rence looked up. 
 
 " Here I am, as you say, Holmes," he answered, 
 quite coolly and unconcernedly. " But where are you 
 bound for, and what's the excitement, anyway? " 
 
 " Why, I thought I'd see if I could meet you. 
 Hazon said you had gone down to Booyseus this 
 morning. What do you think? I've got round him, 
 and I'm going with you." 
 
 Laurence stared, then looked grave. 
 
 " Going with us, eh? I say, youngster, have you 
 made your will? " 
 
 " Haven't got anything to leave. But, Stanning- 
 hame, I'm awfully obliged to you, old fellow. It's all 
 through you I've got round the old man." 
 
 " Have you any sort of idea what our program is? " 
 
 " None. And I don't care." 
 
 Laurence whistled. 
 
 " See here, Holmes," he said, " this thing has got 
 to be looked into. In fact, it can't go on." 
 
 " Yes it can, and it shall. Don't be a beast, now, 
 Stanninghame. I'd go anywhere with you two fel- 
 lows, and I'm dead off this waiting for a boom that 
 
 133 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 never comes. I shall be as stony broke as the rest 
 of them if I hold on any longer. So I'm going to 
 realize at a loss, and go with you. Come along, now, 
 to Phillips' bar and we'll split a bottle of cham. to the 
 undertaking." 
 
 " You don't need to buzz to that extent, Holmes. 
 I hate ' gooseberry.' ' John Walker ' is good enough 
 for me." 
 
 They reached Phillips', and found that historic bar 
 far from empty; and young Holmes, who was full of 
 exhilaration over the prospects of this trip, was in- 
 sisting that many should drink success thereto. 
 Laurence, silent amid the racket of voices, was 
 curiously watching him. This joyous-hearted young- 
 ster, would he ever come to look back upon life as 
 a thing that had far better have never been lived? 
 And he smiled queerly to himself as he thought what 
 would be the effect upon Holmes of the experiences 
 he would bring back with him from that trip to which 
 he was looking forward so joyously, so hopefully 
 if he returned from it at all, that was if, indeed, any 
 of them did. But throughout the racket the strife 
 of tongues, the boisterous guffaw over some cheap 
 " wheeze " the recollection of the shaded room, of 
 that last good-bye in the cloudless noontide pressed 
 like a living weight upon his heart. Never would it 
 be obliterated never. 
 
 Throughout the afternoon Laurence busied himself 
 greatly over the final preparations. He did not even 
 feel tempted to ride over to Booyseus, on some pre- 
 text. Lilith would not be alone. There was always 
 
 134 
 
"AT THE TWELFTH HOUR." 
 
 a host of people there of an afternoon callers, 
 lawn-tennis players, and so forth. The ineffably 
 sweet sadness of that last parting must be the recol- 
 lection he was to carry forth with him. 
 
 It was evening. The wagons had been started 
 just before sundown, and now their owners were 
 riding out of the town to overtake them. Young 
 Holmes, suffering under an exuberance of exhilara- 
 tion begotten of multifold good-byes effected to a 
 spirituous accompaniment, was not so firm in his 
 saddle as he might have been; but on the hardened 
 heads of the other two the effect of such farewells had 
 been nil. They were just getting clear of the town 
 when they became aware of a panting, puffing native 
 striving to overtake them. 
 
 " Why, it's John," said Hazon, recognizing one of 
 the coloured waiters at their hotel. 
 
 The boy ran straight up to Laurence, and held out 
 an envelope. 
 
 " For you, baas," he said. " The baas forgot to 
 give it you. Dank you, baas! " catching, with a grin, 
 something that was flung to him. 
 
 It was a delicate-looking envelope, and sealed. 
 What new surprise was this? as he took in the puzzling 
 yet characteristic handwriting of the address. 
 
 " I must see you once more," he read. " I cannot 
 let you go like this, Laurence, darling. Come to me 
 for one more good-bye. I shall be alone this evening. 
 Come to me, love of my heart. L." 
 
 135 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 "Pho! Of course it was not! It was too ridicu- 
 lous. It was not as if all heaven had opened before 
 his eyes. Of course not ! " he told himself. 
 
 But it was. 
 
 " By the way, Hazon," he said indifferently, " I 
 find there is still a matter I have to attend to. So 
 you must go on without me. I expect I'll overtake 
 you to-morrow not long after sunrise or not much 
 later. So-long!" 
 
 The dark, impassive face of the up-country man 
 underwent no change. He had understood the whole 
 change of plan, but it was no concern of his. So he 
 merely said " /a, so-long," and continued his way. 
 
 Laurence did not go back to the hotel. The last 
 thing he desired was that his return should be noticed 
 and commented upon. He sought out Rainsford, 
 who, having stable-room, willingly consented to put 
 up his steed, and, being a discreet fellow, was not 
 likely to indulge in undue tongue-wagging. Then he 
 took his way down to Booyseus. 
 
 As he stepped forth through the gloom for by 
 this time it was quite dark the words of that missive 
 seemed burned into his brain in characters of fire and 
 of gold. What words they were, too! He had read 
 her glance aright, then? It was only that intrepidity 
 of self-command which he had failed to allow for. 
 And he? Why had he been so strong that morning? 
 Seldom indeed did a second opportunity occur. But 
 now? When he should return up the hill he was now 
 descending, such a memory would be his to carry 
 forth with him into the solitude and peril and priva- 
 tion of his enterprise! Yet to what end? Even if 
 
 136 
 
"AT THE TWELFTH HOUR." 
 
 he were successful in amassing wealth untold, yet 
 they two must be as far apart as ever. Well, that 
 need not follow, he told himself. With wealth one 
 can do anything anything; without it nothing, 
 was at this time the primary article of Laurence 
 Stanninghame's creed; and at the thought his step 
 grew more elastic, and all unconsciously his head 
 threw itself back in a gesture of anticipatory triumph. 
 
 The house was quiet as he approached. At the 
 sound of his step on the stoep almost before he had 
 time to knock the door was opened was opened by 
 Lilith herself then closed behind him. 
 
 She said no word ; she only looked up at him. The 
 subdued light of the half-darkened hall softened as 
 with an almost unearthly beauty the upturned face, 
 and forth from it her eyes shone, glowed with the 
 lustre of a radiant tenderness, too vast, too over- 
 whelming for her lips to utter. 
 
 And he? He, too, said no word. Those lips of 
 hers, sweet, inviting, were pressed to his ; that peerless 
 form was wrapped in his embrace, sinking therein 
 with a soft sigh of contentment. What room was 
 there for mere words? as again and again he kissed 
 the lips eyes hair then the lips again. This was 
 only the beginning of a farewell visit, a sad, whirl- 
 ing, heart-break of farewell, yet as the blood surged 
 boiling through Laurence Stanninghame's veins, and 
 heart, pressed against heart, seemed swelled to burst- 
 ing point, he thought that life, even such as it had 
 been, was worth living if it could contain such a mo- 
 ment as this. Equally, too, did he realize that, in life 
 or in death, the triumph-joy of this moment should 
 
 137 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 illumine his memory, dark though it might be, for ever 
 and ever. 
 
 u What did you think of me when you got my note, 
 dear one? " she whispered at last. " And I have been 
 in perfect agony ever since, for fear it should be too 
 late. But I could not let you go as I did this morn- 
 ing. I felt such an irresistible craving to see you 
 again, Laurence, my darling, to hear your voice. I 
 felt we could not part as we did each trying to 
 deceive the other, each knowing, the while, that it 
 was impossible. I wanted more than that for a 
 memory throughout the blank time that is coming." 
 
 " Yes, we were both too strong, my Lilith. And 
 why should we have been? What scruple ever stood 
 anybody to the good in this hell-fraud of a state 
 called ' Life ' ? Not one not one ! Yes, we were too 
 strong, and your self-command deceived even me." 
 
 " My self-command? Ah, Laurence, my darling, 
 how little you knew! All the time I was battling 
 hard with myself, forcing down an irresistible long- 
 ing to do this and this and this ! " And drawing 
 down his head, she kissed him, again and again, 
 long, tender kisses, as though her whole soul sought 
 entrance into his. 
 
 " But I shall tire you, my dearest, if I keep you 
 standing here like this," she went on. " Come inside 
 now, and our last talk our last for a long time 
 shall, at any rate, be a cosey one." 
 
 She drew him within the half open door of an ad- 
 joining room. The window curtains were drawn, 
 and a shaded lamp gave forth the same subdued and 
 chastened light as that which burned in the hall. 
 
 138 
 
"AT THE TWELFTH HOUR." 
 
 There were flowers in vases and sprays, arranged in 
 every tasteful and delicate manner, and distilling a 
 fragrance subtile and pervading. The sumptuous 
 prettiness of the furniture and ornaments picture 
 frames encasing mystic and thought-evoking subjects, 
 books disposed here and there, delicate embroidery, 
 the work of her fingers in short, the hundred and 
 one dainty knick-knacks pleasing to the eye seemed 
 to reflect the bright, beautiful personality of Lilith; 
 for, indeed, the arrangement and disposal of them 
 was almost entirely her own. 
 
 She made him sit down upon the softest and most 
 comfortable couch; then, as she seated herself beside 
 him, he drew her head down to rest upon his shoulder 
 and wound his arms about her. 
 
 " Why did you wait until even the twelfth hour? " 
 he said. " Why did you blind me all this time, my 
 Lilith? Only think what we have lost by it! " 
 
 " Ah, yes, I have indeed. But tell me, dear one, 
 it is not too late, is it, even though it be the twelfth 
 hour?" 
 
 " It came very near being too late. I had already 
 started. Yes, it is indeed the twelfth hour. Too late? 
 I don't know," he went on, in a tone of sombre bitter- 
 ness. " Think of the blissful times that might have 
 been ours had I but known. I would have taught 
 you the real meaning of the word ' love.' I would 
 have drawn your innermost soul from you would 
 have drawn it into mine have twined every thought 
 of your being around mine had I but known. And I 
 could have done this; you know I could, do you not? 
 Think a moment, then answer." 
 
 139 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 The head which rested on his shoulder seemed to 
 lean heavier there; the arm which encircled her was 
 pressed tighter by hers to the round, beautiful waist, 
 as though to bring herself closer within his embrace. 
 The answer came, rapturously sweet, but with a thrill 
 of pain: 
 
 " I know you could have. There is no need to 
 think, even for a moment. You have done it." 
 
 " I have tried to, even against difficulties. Come 
 what may, Lilith, you shall never be free from the 
 spell of this love of ours. All thoughts of other love 
 shall be flat, and stale, and dead; and now, when I 
 am gone, your whole soul shall ache and throb with a 
 sense of loss love and pain intertwined yet not 
 one pang of the latter would you forego, lest it should 
 lessen the rapturous keenness of the former in the 
 minutest degree. This is what you have caused me 
 to suffer by reason of your stony self-command up 
 till this morning. Now you shall suffer it too." 
 
 His tones were calm, even almost stern as those of 
 a judge pronouncing sentence. Lilith, drinking in 
 every word, felt already that every word was true. 
 That sense of love and pain was already in possession 
 of her soul, and would retain possession until all 
 capacity for feeling \vas dulled and dead. 
 
 " You were cruel to draw my very soul out of me 
 as you have done to force me to love you as I do," 
 she answered " cruel and pitiless." 
 
 "What then? I was but carrying out the pro- 
 gram of life. It is that way. But tell me, would 
 you have preferred that I had not done it that I 
 had passed by on the other side?" 
 
 140 
 
"AT THE TWELFTH HOUR." 
 
 "Oh, my Laurence, no! No, no ten thousand 
 times no! The mere recollection of such an hour as 
 this is worth a life-time of the awful pain of loss of 
 which you speak and which is around me already." 
 
 " That was my own judgment when I first recog- 
 nized that a strong mutual ' draw ' was bringing us 
 together. I foresaw this moment, and deliberately 
 acquiesced in fate." 
 
 Now the soft waves of her hair swept his face, now 
 the satin smoothness of her cheek lay against his. 
 Lips met lips again and again, and never for a mo- 
 ment did the clasp of that firm embrace relax. The 
 dead blank hopelessness of life and its conditions, 
 then, had still contained this, had culminated in this? 
 As he thus held her to him, as though he would hold 
 her forever, some dreamy brain-wave seemed to carry 
 Laurence's mind into the dim and somewhat awe- 
 some vistas of the future, to bring it face to face 
 with death in varying and appalling forms. What 
 mattered! The recollection of this farewell hour here, 
 in the half-shaded room, with its subtile fragrance of 
 flowers and mysterious light, would be with him then. 
 Such an hour as this would be a crowning triumph 
 to the apex of life. Better that life should end than 
 lengthen out to witness a decline from this apex. 
 
 As Lilith had said, he was cruel and pitiless in his 
 love. What then? It was characteristic of him. 
 Had not all experience taught him that the slightest 
 weakness, the slightest compunction, was that faulty 
 link which should snap the chain, be the latter never 
 so massively forged? He remembered how they had 
 
 141 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 held discussion as to whether right might ensue from 
 what was wrong in the abstract. He remembered 
 the cold, hard imprint of the revolver-muzzle against 
 his forehead, the increasing pressure of his thumb 
 upon the trigger, then the thought of Lilith's love had 
 come in as a hand stretched forth to snatch him from 
 the jaws of death. And it had so snatched him. 
 What were the mere conventional rules of abstract 
 right or wrong beside such an instance of cause and 
 effect? Old wives' fables. 
 
 They were standing up, face to face, looking into 
 each other's eyes. The hour was late now. Any 
 moment the household might return. Both desired 
 that the last farewell should take place alone. Not 
 for the sake of a few more precious moments would 
 they run the risk of being cheated out of that last 
 farewell. 
 
 " You sweet, cruel, pitiless torturer," Lilith said, 
 locking her hands in his, as they rose, " you have 
 placed my life under one great lasting shadow, 
 because of the recollection of you. How will it be, 
 think you, when I wake up to-morrow and find you 
 are gone if I sleep at all that is? How will it be 
 
 when, day after day, week after week Ah, love, 
 
 love," she broke off, " and yet I cannot say, ' Why 
 did you do it? ' for your very cruelty in doing it is 
 sweet sweet, do you hear, Laurence? Have you 
 ever been loved tell me, have you, have you?" she 
 went on, drawing his head down with a sort of 
 fierceness and again pressing her burning lips 
 to his. 
 
 142 
 
-AT THE TWELFTH HOUR." 
 
 " At the twelfth hour! at the twelfth hour! " he re- 
 peated, in a kind of condemnatory merciless tone, 
 while his clasp tightened around the lovely form, 
 which seemed literally to hang in his arms. " Love 
 of my heart, think what such an hour as this might 
 have been, not once, but again and again, and that 
 undashed with the pain of immediate parting as now. 
 Why did we why did you wait until the very 
 twelfth hour? Why?" 
 
 " Why, indeed? Darling, darling, don't reproach 
 me. You have drawn my very heart and soul into 
 yours. Think of it ever, day and night, whatever 
 may befall you. Oh, Laurence, my heart's life ! " 
 
 Now this hard, stony, self-controlled stoic dis- 
 covered that his granite nature was shaken to its 
 foundation. But, even then, the unutterable sweet- 
 ness of the thought that he, and he alone, had lived 
 to inspire the anguish of the pleading tones that 
 thrilled to his ear, thrilled with love for him, to en- 
 kindle the light that shone from those eyes, melting 
 with love for him; this thought flowed in upon the 
 torrent-wave of his pain, rendering it bliss, yet lash- 
 ing it up the more fiercely. 
 
 There was silence for a few moments. Both stood 
 gazing into each other's eyes; gazing, as it were, into 
 the innermost depths of each other's soul. Then the 
 sound of voices drawing nearer, rising above the 
 clanking hum of the Crown Reef battery, seemed to 
 warn them that if their last farewell was to be made 
 alone the time to make it had come. 
 
 " Good-bye, now, love of my heart," he whispered, 
 between long, burning, clinging kisses. Now that 
 
 143 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 this final parting had come, the dead, dreary, heart- 
 sick pain of it seemed to choke all utterance. 
 
 She strained him to her, and heart throbbed against 
 heart. Even now she seemed to see his face mistily 
 and far away. 
 
 "Oh, it is too bitter!" she gasped, striving to 
 drown her rising sobs. " Laurence, my darling! 
 Oh, my love, my life, my ideal yes, you were that 
 from the moment I first saw you good-bye and 
 good-bye ! " 
 
 He was gone. It was as though their embrace had 
 literally been wrenched asunder. He was gone. And 
 even as he passed from her vision, from the light 
 into the gloom, so it seemed as though he had borne 
 the light of her life with him, and, as Lilith stood there 
 in the open doorway, gazing forth into the night, the 
 dull- measured clank of the battery stamps seemed to 
 beat in cruel, pitiless refrain within her heart: 
 
 " At the twelfth hour! at the twelfth hour! " 
 
 144 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 " THE DARK PLACES OF THE EARTH." 
 
 THE sun is setting above the tropical forest hot 
 and red and smoky his fiery ball imparting some- 
 thing of a coppery molten hue to the vast seas of 
 luxuriant verdure, rolling, with scarce a break, on all 
 sides, far as the eye can reach. But beneath, in the 
 dim shade, where the air is choked by rotting under- 
 growth and tangled vegetation, the now slanting rays 
 are powerless to penetrate, powerless to dispel the 
 steamy miasmic exhalations. Silence, too, is the rule 
 in that semi-gloom, save for here and there the half- 
 frightened chirp of a bird far up among the tree-tops, 
 or the stealthy rustle beneath as some serpent, or huge 
 venomous insect, moves upon its way. For among 
 the decayed wood of fallen tree trunks, and dry lichens 
 and hoary mosses growing therefrom, do such 
 delight to dwell. 
 
 Beautiful as this shaded solitude is with its vistas 
 of massive tree-trunk and sombre foliage, the latter 
 here and there relieved by clusters of scarlet-hued 
 blossoms, there is withal an awesomeness about its 
 beauty. Even the surroundings will soon begin to 
 take on shape, and the boles and tossing boughs, 
 and naked, dead, and broken fragments starting from 
 the dank soil, assume form, attitude, countenance, 
 
 145 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 in a hundred divers contortions gnome-like, gro- 
 tesque, diabolical. Strange, too, if the wayfarer 
 threading the steamy mazes of these unending glades 
 does not soon think to hear ghostly whisperings in 
 the awed silence of the air, does not conjure up un- 
 seen eyes marking his every step for the hot moist 
 depression is such as to weigh alike upon nerve and 
 brain. 
 
 And now, through the sombre vistas of this phan- 
 tom-evoking solitude, faint and far comes a strange 
 sound a low, vibrating, booming hum, above which, 
 now and again, arises a shrill, long-drawn wail. The 
 effect is indescribably gruesome and eerie in fact, 
 terror-striking even if human, for there is an inde- 
 finable something, in sight, and sound, and surround- 
 ing, calculated to tell, if telling were needed, that this 
 is indeed one of " the dark places of the earth." 
 
 But if the sinking beams of the orb of light fail to 
 penetrate this foliage and enshrouded gloom, they 
 slant hot and red upon an open space, and that 
 which this space contains. Inclosed within an ir- 
 regular stockade mud-plastered, reed-thatched 
 stand the huts of a native village. 
 
 The noise which penetrated in faint eerie murmur to 
 yon distant forest shades is here terrific the booming 
 of drums, the cavernous bellowing of the native horns, 
 drowning rather than supporting the shrill yelling 
 chorus of the singers. For a great dance is pro- 
 ceeding. 
 
 Immediately within the principal gate of the stock- 
 ade is a large open space, and in this the dancers are 
 performing. In a half circle in the background sit 
 
 146 
 
"THE DARK PLACES OF THE EARTH/' 
 
 a number of women and children, aiding with shrill 
 nasal voices the efforts of the " musicians." 
 
 The dancers, to the number of about a hundred, 
 seem to represent the warrior strength of the place. 
 They are wild-looking savages enough with their 
 cicatrized and tattooed faces, and wool, red with 
 grease and ochre and plaited into tags, standing out 
 like horns from their heads, giving them a frightfully 
 demoniacal aspect as they whirl and leap, brandish- 
 ing spears and axes, and going through the pantomime 
 of slaying an enemy. They are of fair physique, 
 though tall and gaunt rather than sturdy of build. 
 And is it a mere accident, or in accordance with 
 some custom not one there present whether among 
 the truculent crew executing the dance or among the 
 women in the background, appears to have attained 
 old age. 
 
 The whole scene is sufficiently repulsive, even ter- 
 rifying, to come upon suddenly from the silent heart 
 of the dark, repellent forest. But there is yet another 
 setting to the picture, which shall render it complete 
 in every hideous and horrifying detail. For the prin- 
 cipal gate itself is decorated with a complete archway 
 of human heads. 
 
 Heads in every stage of horror and decay from 
 the white, bleached skull, grinning dolefully, to the 
 bloated features of that but lately severed, scowling 
 outward with an awful expression of terror and agony 
 and hate an archway of them arranged in some grim 
 approach to regularity or taste. This dreadful gate 
 is indeed a fitting entrance to a devil's abode, and now, 
 as the red, fiery rays of the sinking sun play full 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 upon it, the tortured features seem to move and pucker 
 as though blasted with the flame of satanic fires. A 
 crow, withdrawing his beak from the sightless eye- 
 holes of one of the skulls, soars upward, black and 
 demon-like, uttering a weird, raucous croak. 
 
 But as the sun touches the far-away sky line the 
 dance suddenly ceases. In wild hubbub the fighting 
 men stream out of the stockade, through the awful 
 archway of heads. They are followed by women, 
 bearing strange-looking baskets and great knives. 
 All are in high spirits, chattering and laughing among 
 each other. 
 
 The forest on this side grows almost to the gate. 
 Just where its shade begins the crowd halts, cluster- 
 ing eagerly around two trees which stand a little apart 
 from the rest. But from one to the other of these 
 two trees is lashed a stout beam, such as butchers 
 might use for hoisting the carcass of a slain bullock. 
 And look! below are oblong slabs of massive wood, 
 and upon them is blood. This is the cattle-killing 
 place, then, and these warriors are about to slaughter 
 the material for a feast ! 
 
 Now there is more chatter and hubbub, and all 
 faces are turned towards the grim gate are turned 
 expectantly; for the cattle awaited. Then a shout, 
 an exclamation, goes up. The material for the feast 
 is drawing near. 
 
 The material for the feast! Heavens! No cattle 
 this, but human beings ! 
 
 Human beings! Bound, trussed, helpless, five 
 human bodies are borne along by their head and heels, 
 and flung down anyhow at the place of slaughter. 
 
 148 
 
"THE DARK PLACES OF THE EARTH." 
 
 The eyeballs of the victims are starting from their 
 heads with terror and despair as their glance falls 
 upon the grisly instruments of death. Yet no sur- 
 prise is there, for they have seen it all before. 
 
 Three of the five are old men. These are seized 
 first, and, a thong being made fast to their ankles, 
 they are hauled up to the beam, where, hanging head 
 downwards, they are butchered like calves. And 
 those who are most active in at any rate preparing 
 them for the slaughter, are their own children their 
 oivn sons. 
 
 These go about their work without one spark of 
 pity, one qualm of ruth. Will not their own turn 
 come in the course of years, should they not be slain 
 in battle or the chase in the interim? Of course. 
 Why then heed such vain sentiment? It is the 
 custom. Old and useless people are not kept among 
 this tribe. 
 
 The other two, who are not old, but prisoners of 
 war, suffer in like manner; and then all five of the 
 bodies are flung on to the blocks and quartered and 
 disjointed with astonishing celerity. And women 
 bearing the oblong baskets return within the stock- 
 ade, passing through the hideous gateway, staggering 
 beneath the weight of limbs and trunks of their 
 slaughtered fellow-species. Within the open space 
 great fires now leap and crackle into life, roaring up- 
 ward upon the still air, reddening as with a demon- 
 glow this hellish scene, and, gathering around, the 
 savages impatiently and with hungry eyes watch the 
 cooking of the disjointed members, and, hardly able 
 to restrain their impatience, snatch their horrible 
 
 149 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 roast from the flames and embers before it is much 
 more than warmed through; and with laugh and 
 shout the cannibal orgy goes on, prolonged far into 
 the night, the bones and refuse being flung to the 
 women in the background. 
 
 At last, surfeited with their frightful feast, these 
 demons in human shape drop down and sleep like 
 brute beasts. And the full moon soaring high in the 
 heavens looks down with a gibing sneer in her cold 
 cruel face upon this scene of a shocking human 
 shambles; and her light, so far from irradiating this 
 " dark place of the earth," seems but to shed a livid 
 sulphurous glare upon a very antechamber of hell. 
 
 The moon floats higher and higher above the tropi- 
 cal forest, flooding the seas of slumbering foliage 
 with silver light. Hour follows upon hour, and in 
 the stockaded village all is silent as with the stillness 
 of death. The ghastly remnants of that fearful feast 
 lie around in the moonbeams human bones, picked 
 clean, yet expressive in their shape, spectral, as though 
 they would fain reunite, and, vampire-like, return to 
 drain the life-blood of these human wolves who devour 
 their own kind. But the sleep of the latter is calm, 
 peaceful, secure. 
 
 Secure? Wait! What are these stealthy forms 
 rising noiselessly among the undergrowth on the out- 
 skirts of the clearing? Are they ghosts? Ghosts of 
 those thus barbarously slain and of many others before 
 them? The moonlit sward is alive with flitting 
 shapes, gliding towards the stockade, surrounding it 
 on all sides with a celerity and fixity of purpose which 
 
 150 
 
"THE DARK PLACES OF THE EARTH." 
 
 can have but one meaning. And among them is the 
 glint of metal, the shining of rifle barrels and spear 
 blades. 
 
 The inhabitants of that village are savages, and 
 thus, for all their flesh-gorged state of heavy slumber, 
 are instinctively on the alert. They wake, and rush 
 forth with wild yells of alarm, of warning. But to 
 many of them it is the last sound they shall utter, 
 for numberless forms are already swarming over the 
 stockade, and now the stillness is rent by the roar of 
 firearms. Dark, ferocious faces grin with exultation 
 as the panic-stricken inhabitants, decimated by that 
 deadly volley, turn wildly in headlong flight for the 
 only side of the stockade apparently left open. But 
 before these arises another mass of assailants, barring 
 their way, then springing upon them spear in hand; 
 and the fiendish war-whistle screeches its strident 
 chorus, as the broad spears shear down through 
 flesh and muscle; and the earth is slippery with 
 blood, ghastly with writhing and disemboweled 
 corpses. 
 
 If this nest of man-eaters was hellish before in its 
 bloodstained horror, words fail to describe its aspect 
 now. The savage shouts of the assailants, the despair- 
 ing screeches of women and children, who have come 
 forth only to find all escape cut off, the gasping groans 
 of the wounded and of the slain, the gaping gashes 
 and staggering forms, and ever around, grim, demon- 
 like countenances, with teeth bared and a perfect hell 
 of blood-fury gleaming from distended eyeballs. 
 All is but another inferno-picture, too common here 
 in the dark places of the earth. It seems that in a 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 very few minutes not a living being in that surprised 
 village will be left alive. 
 
 But now voices are raised in remonstrance, in com- 
 mand loud voices, authoritative voices ordering a 
 cessation of the massacre, for this is no expedition 
 of vengeance, but a slave-hunting party. In Swahili 
 and Zulu the leaders strive to curb this blood-rage 
 once let loose among their followers. But the savage 
 Wangoni, who are the speakers of the latter tongue 
 and who constitute about half the attacking party, 
 have tasted slaughter, and their ferocity is well-nigh 
 beyond control; indeed, but for the fact of being 
 allowed to massacre a proportion of the inhabitants 
 of each place attacked, they could not be enlisted for 
 such a purpose at all. Still their broad spears flash 
 in the moonlight, and all who are in the way feel them 
 combatants, shrieking women, paralyzed, crouch- 
 ing children; and not until the leader has threatened 
 to turn his rifles upon them will these ferocious 
 auxiliaries be persuaded to desist, and then only sul- 
 lenly, and growling like a pack of disappointed 
 wolves. 
 
 Fully one-half of the male inhabitants have been 
 slain and not a few women and children, and now, 
 as the heavy, sulphurous fumes of powder smoke roll 
 forth on the still, solemn beauty of the night, and the 
 Wangoni, reluctantly quitting the congenial work of 
 plunder and rapine, drive into open space every liv- 
 ing being they can muster, the two leaders step 
 forward, and with critical decision inspect the extent 
 and quality of their capture. Of the latter there are 
 none but able-bodied, for the sufficiently hideous 
 
 152 
 
"THE DARK PLACES OF THE EARTH/' 
 
 reason already set forth. These are drafted into 
 gangs according to age or sex, and yoked together 
 like oxen, with heavy wooden yokes. 
 
 Upon the whole of this wild scene of carnage and 
 massacre the principal leader of the slave-hunters has 
 gazed unmoved. Not a shot has he fired, not deem- 
 ing it necessary, so complete was the panic wherewith 
 the cannibal village was overwhelmed. Rather have 
 his energies been devoted to restraining the blood- 
 thirst of his ferocious followers, for he looks upon the 
 tragedy with a cold commercial eye. Prisoners rep- 
 resent so many saleable wares. If - it is essential 
 that his hell-hounds shall taste a modicum of blood, 
 or their appetite for that species of quarry would be 
 gone, it is his business to see that they destroy no 
 more " property " than can be avoided. 
 
 The force is made up of Swahili and negroid Arabs, 
 and a strong contingent of Wangoni a Zulu-speak- 
 ing tribe, turbulent, warlike, and to whom such a 
 maraud as this comes as the most congenial occupa- 
 tion in the world. 
 
 The last-named savages are still looking through 
 the reed huts in search of food, arms, anything port- 
 able. If during their quest they happen upon a terri- 
 fied fugitive hoping for concealment, their delight 
 knows no bounds, for have they not the enjoyment 
 of privily spearing such, away from their leader's eye? 
 
 The said leader now gives the word to march, and 
 as the moonlight pales into the first grays of dawn 
 the scene of the massacre becomes plain in all its 
 appalling detail. Corpses ripped and slashed, lying 
 around in every contorted attitude, among broken 
 
 153 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 weapons and strewn about articles of clothing or 
 furniture. Everywhere blood the ground is slip- 
 pery with it, the huts are splashed with it, the persons 
 and weapons of the raiders are all horrid with it; and 
 in the midst that band of men and women yoked like 
 cattle, and with the same hopeless, stolid expression 
 now upon their countenances. Yet they are not 
 dejected. Their lives have been spared where others 
 have been slain. But they are slaves. 
 
 " Bid farewell to home, O foul and evil dogs who 
 devour each other," jeer the savage Wangoni, as 
 these are driven forth. " Whau! Ye shall keep each 
 other in meat on the way. Ha, ha! For in truth ye 
 are as fat oxen to each other," pointing with their 
 broad spears to the gruesome trees and crossbeam 
 the scene of the hideous cannibal slaughter. For the 
 Wangoni, by virtue of their Zulu origin, hold canni- 
 balism in the deepest horror and aversion. 
 
 These barbarians now, humming a bass war-song 
 as they march, are in high glee, for there are more 
 villages to raid. And as the whole party moves forth 
 from the glade once more to plunge within the forest 
 gloom, the air is alive with the circling of carrion 
 birds; and the newly risen sun darts his first arrowy 
 beam upon the scene of horror, lighting up the red 
 gore and the slain corpses, and the ghastly staring 
 heads upon the gateway. Even as his last ray fell 
 upon a tragedy of blood and of cruelty so now does 
 his first, for in truth this is one of the " dark places 
 of the earth." 
 
 J54 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE MAN HUNTERS. 
 
 FOR some three hours the party moves forward 
 through the forest shades. Then a halt is called, and, 
 sentinels having been posted, soon the smoke of 
 bivouac fires ascends, and the clatter of cooking 
 utensils mingles with the hum of many voices. 
 
 The place selected is an open glade or clearing, 
 overhung on one side by hoary masses of rock. The 
 slave-hunters, as we have said, are divided into two 
 sections, one consisting of negroid Arabs and Wa- 
 Swahili, believers in the Prophet mostly, and clad in 
 array once gaudy but now soiled and tarnished, some 
 few, however, wearing the white haik and burnous; 
 the other of Wangoni, stalwart, martial savages, 
 believers in nothing and clad in not much more. 
 These form camps apart, for at heart each section 
 despises the other, though for purposes of self-interest 
 temporarily welded. A few, but very few, are Arabs 
 of pure blood. 
 
 One of these is now engaged in converse with the 
 leader of the party. He is a tall, dignified, keen-faced 
 man, with eyes as piercing as those of a hawk, and 
 his speech is sparing. But if his words are few his 
 deeds are many, and the name of Lutali which, how- 
 ever, he makes no secret is not his real name is 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 known and feared at least as far and as thoroughly 
 as that of the chief of the slavers himself. 
 
 For the latter, one glance at him is sufficient to 
 show that if ever man was born to rule with firm but 
 judicious hand such a gang of bloodthirsty free- 
 booters it is this one. The vigour of his powerful 
 frame is apparent with every movement, and the 
 strength and fixity of will expressed in his keen dark 
 face there is no mistaking. But the black, piercing 
 eyes and bronzed features belong to no Arab, no half 
 caste. He is a white man, a European. 
 
 Stay! To be accurate, there is just a strain of Arab 
 in him; faint, indeed, as of several generations inter- 
 vening, yet real enough to qualify him for mysterious 
 rites of blood brotherhood with some of the most 
 powerful chiefs from Tanganyika to Khartoum. And 
 throughout the Congo territory, and many an equa- 
 torial tribe beyond, this man's name has been known 
 and feared. No leader of slave-hunters can come 
 near him for bold and wide-sweeping raids, the terror 
 and unexpectedness of which, together with the com- 
 plete and ruthless fixity of purpose wherewith the 
 objects of them, however strong, however alert, are 
 struck and promptly subjugated, have gained for him 
 among his followers and allies the sobriquet of El 
 Khanac, " The Strangler." But the reader together 
 with Johannesburg at large knows him under an- 
 other name, and that is " Pirate " Hazon. 
 
 " Is it prudent, think you, Lutali? " he is saying. 
 " Consider. These Wajalu are a trifle too near the 
 land of the Ba-gcatya. Indeed, we ourselves are too 
 near it now, and a day's journey or more in the same 
 
 156 
 
THE MAN HUNTERS. 
 
 direction is it not to run our heads into the jaws of 
 the lion?" 
 
 " Allah is great, my brother," replies the Arab, with 
 a shrug of the shoulders. " But I would ask, what 
 have we, in our numbers and with arms such as these," 
 gripping significantly his Express rifle, " to fear from 
 those devil-worshippers armed with spears and 
 shields yea, even the whole nation of them?" 
 
 " Yet I have seen an army of the nation of which 
 those ' devil-worshippers ' are sprung, armed only with 
 spears and shields, eat up a force three times as large 
 as our own and infinitely better armed, I being one 
 of the few who escaped. And ' The People of the 
 Spider ' cannot, from all accounts, be inferior to the 
 stock whence they came." 
 
 Lutali shrugs his shoulders again. 
 
 " It may be so," he says, " yet there is a large 
 village of these Wajalu which would prove an easy 
 capture and would complete the number we need." 
 
 " Then let us chance it," is Hazon's rejoinder. 
 
 The Arab makes a murmur of assent and stalks 
 away to his own people, while Hazon returns to where 
 he has left his white colleague. 
 
 " Well, Holmes, according to Lutali, they are bent 
 on risking it," he begins, throwing himself upon a rug 
 and proceeding to fill a pipe. 
 
 " Are they? I'm not altogether glad, yet if it tends 
 towards hurrying us out of this butchery line of busi- 
 ness I'm not altogether sorry. I think I hate it more 
 and more every day." 
 
 " It isn't a bad line of business, Holmes," returns 
 Hazon, completely ignoring the smothered reproach- 
 is? 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 fulness, resentment even, underlying the tone and 
 reply. " Come, now, you've made a goodish bit of 
 money the short time you have been at it. Anyhow, 
 I want to know in what other you would have made 
 anything like as much in the time. Not in fooling 
 with those rotten swindling stocks at the Rand, for 
 instance? " 
 
 " Maybe not. But we haven't realized yet. In 
 other words, we are not safe out of the wood yet, 
 Hazon, and so it's too soon to hulloa. I don't believe 
 we are going to get off so easily," he adds. 
 
 " Are you going to get on your croaking horse 
 again, and threaten us with ' judgments ' and ' curses/ 
 and all that sort of thing? " rejoins the other, with a 
 good-humoured laugh. " Why, man, we are philan- 
 thropists real philanthropists. And I never heard 
 of ' judgments ' and ' curses ' being showered upon 
 such." 
 
 " Philanthropists, are we? That's a good idea. 
 But where, by the way, does the philanthropy come 
 in?" 
 
 " Why, just here." Then, impressively, " Listen, 
 now, Holmes. Carry your mind back to all the 
 sights you have seen since we came up the Lualaba 
 until now. Have you forgotten that round dozen of 
 niggers we happened on, buried in the ground up to 
 their necks, and when we had dug up one fellow we 
 found we had taken a lot of trouble for nothing be- 
 cause he'd got his arms and legs broken. The same 
 held good of all the others, except that some were 
 mutilated as well. You remember how sick it made 
 you coming upon those heads in the half darkness; or 
 
 158 
 
THE MAN HUNTERS. 
 
 those quarters of a human body swinging from 
 branches, to which their owner had been spliced so 
 that, in springing back, the boughs should drag him 
 asunder, as in fact they did? Or the sight of people 
 feeding on the flesh of their own blood relations, and 
 many and many another spectacle no more amusing? 
 Well, then, these barbarities were practised by no 
 wicked slave-raiders, mind, but by the ' quiet, harm- 
 less ' people upon each other. And they are of every- 
 day occurrence. Well, then, in capturing these gentle 
 souls, and deporting them for a price whither they 
 will perforce be taught better manners, we are acting 
 the part of real philanthropists. Do you catch on? " 
 
 " What of those we kill? Those Wangoni brutes 
 are never happy unless killing." 
 
 " That is inevitable and is the law of life, which is 
 always hard. And, as Lutali would say, who may 
 fight against his destiny? Not that I mean to say 
 we embarked in this business from motives of philan- 
 thropy, friend Holmes; I only cite the argument as 
 one to quiet that singularly inconvenient conscience 
 of yours. We did so, Stanninghame and I, at any 
 rate, to make money quickly, and plenty of it; and 
 I'm not sure Stanninghame doesn't need it more than 
 you and I put together." 
 
 " By-the-by, I wonder what on earth has become 
 of Stanninghame all this time? " said Holmes, ap- 
 parently glad to quit an unprofitable subject. 
 
 " So do I. He ought to have joined us by now. 
 He is just a trifle foolhardy, is Stanninghame, in 
 knocking about so far afield alone," and a shade of 
 anxiety steals over the speaker's face. 
 
 159 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 Holmes makes no reply, and for a while lies back 
 on his rug, puffing away at his pipe and busy with 
 his thoughts. These are not altogether pleasant. 
 The process which had transformed the fine, open- 
 natured, wholesome-hearted young Englishman into 
 a slave-hunter, the confederate of ruthless cut-throats 
 and desperadoes, had, in truth, been such as to en- 
 gender the reverse of pleasant thoughts. Yet, that he 
 had come to this was rather the fault of circumstances 
 than the fault of Holmes. He had enjoyed the big 
 game shooting and the ivory trading of the earlier 
 stage of the trip, the more so from the consciousness 
 that there was profit in both; and when a large cara- 
 van of the above and other legitimate merchandise 
 had been run down to the coast, he had steadfastly 
 refused to take the opportunity of parting company 
 with the others. Then when they had pushed farther 
 into the equatorial regions, and, joining with Lutali, 
 had embarked on their present enterprise, all oppor- 
 tunity of withdrawing had gone. The precise point 
 at which he had cast in his lot with this, Holmes could 
 not with certainty define. Yet there were times when 
 he thought he could. He had relieved his conscience 
 with indignant, passionate protest, when first his eyes 
 became fairly opened to the real nature of the enter- 
 prise; and then had supervened that terrible bout of 
 malarial fever, his tardy recovery from which he owed 
 entirely to the care and nursing of both Hazon and 
 Stanninghame. But it left him for a long time weak- 
 ened in mind and will no less than in body, and what 
 could he do but succumb to the inevitable? Yet he 
 had never entered into the sinister undertaking with 
 
 160 
 
THE MAN HUNTERS. 
 
 the whole-heartedness of his two conscienceless con- 
 federates, and of this the latter were aware. 
 
 However, of his scruples they were tolerant 
 enough. He was brimful of pluck, and seemed to 
 enjoy the situation when they were attacked by over- 
 whelming odds and had to fight hard and fiercely, 
 such as befell more than once. And they would insidi- 
 ously lay salve to his misgivings by such arguments 
 as we have just heard Hazon adduce, or by reminding 
 him of the fortune they were making, or even of the 
 physical advantage he was deriving from the trip. 
 
 The latter, indeed, was a fact. The life in the open, 
 the varying climates, frequent and inevitable hardships 
 and never-absent peril, had made their mark upon 
 Holmes. Once recovered from his attack, he began 
 to put on flesh and muscle, and his eyes were clear 
 and bright with that keen alertness which is the result 
 of peril as a constant companion. In short, as they 
 said, he looked twice the man he had done when 
 lounging around the Stock Exchange or the liquor 
 bars of Johannesburg. 
 
 Through the hot hours of noontide the raiders lie 
 at their ease. Many are asleep, others conversing in 
 drowsy tones, smoking or chewing tobacco. The 
 Wangoni divide their time about equally between tak- 
 ing snuff and jeering at and teasing the unfortunate 
 captives. These, crouching on the ground, relieved 
 during the halt of their heavy forked yokes, endure 
 it all with the stoicism of the most practical phase of 
 humanity the savage. No good is to be got out of 
 bewailing their lot, therefore they do not bewail it; 
 
 161 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 moreover, belonging to a savage race, and far from 
 the highest type of the same, they have no thought of 
 the future, and are thus spared the discomfort and 
 anxiety of speculating as to what it may contain for 
 xthem. Indeed, their chief anxiety at this moment is 
 that of food, of which they would fain have more, and 
 gaze with wistful eyes upon their captors, who are 
 feasting on the remnant of what was until lately their 
 own property. But the latter jeeringly suggest to 
 them the expediency of their devouring each other, 
 since they seem to have a preference for such diet. 
 
 Then, as the sun's rays abate somewhat in fierce- 
 ness, the temporary camp is struck. Bearers take up 
 their loads, fighters look to their arms, the soiled and 
 gaudy finery of the semi-civilized sons of the Prophet 
 contrasting with the shining skins of the naked Wan- 
 goni, even as the Winchester and Snider rifles and 
 great sheath-knives and revolvers of the first do with 
 the broad spears and tufted hide shields of the latter. 
 And with the files of dejected-looking slaves, yoked 
 together in their heavy wooden forks, or chained only, 
 the whole caravan, numbering now some six hundred 
 souls, moves onward. 
 
 But in the mind of the principal of the two white 
 leaders, as he traces a cipher on the scene of their 
 recent halt, and in that of the other, who watches him, 
 is present, now with deepening anxiety, the same 
 thought, the same speculation: What has become of 
 the third? 
 
 162 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A DREAM. 
 
 UNDER the shade of a large tree-fern a man is lying 
 asleep. 
 
 Around the wilderness spreads in rolling undula- 
 tion, open here for the most part, though dotted with 
 clumps of bush and trees, which seem to have become 
 detached from the dark line of forest. This, on the 
 one hand, stretches away into endless blue; on the 
 other a broad expanse of water apparently a fine 
 river, actually a chain of lagoons with reed-fringed 
 banks; and here and there a low spit, where red 
 flamingoes roost lazily on one leg. Beyond this again 
 lies an unbroken line of forest. 
 
 The man is arrayed in the simple costume of the 
 wilderness a calico shirt, and moleskin trousers pro- 
 tected by leather leggings. A broad-brimmed hat 
 lies under his head, to which, indeed, it serves as sole 
 pillow. He is heavily armed* The right hand still 
 grips an Express rifle in mute suggestion of one 
 accustomed to slumber in the midst of peril. A 
 revolver in a holster rests beside him, and in his 
 leathern belt is a strong sheath knife. Now and 
 again he moves in his sleep, and at such times his 
 unarmed hand seems instinctively to seek out some- 
 thing which is concealed from view, possibly some- 
 
 163 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 thing which is suspended round his neck by that light 
 but strong chain. Thus hour after hour rolls over 
 him, as he slumbers on in the burning equatorial heat. 
 
 The sleeper turns again uneasily, and as he does 
 so his hand again seeks the steel chain just visible 
 through his open shirt, and, instinctively working 
 down it, closes over that which is secured thereto; 
 then, as though the effect is lulling, once more he is 
 still again, slumbering easily, peacefully. 
 
 The sun's rays, slanting now, dart in beneath the 
 scanty shade of the tree-fern, and as they burn upon 
 the dark face, bronzed and hardened by climate and 
 toil, the sleeper's lips are moving, and a peculiarly 
 soft and wistful expression seems to rest upon the 
 firm features. Then his eyes open wide. For a mo- 
 ment he lies, staring up at the green fronds which 
 afford shade no longer, then starts up into a sitting 
 posture. And simultaneous with the movement here 
 and there a faint circular ripple widens on the slimy 
 surface of the lagoon, as each of those dark specks, 
 representing the snout of a basking crocodile, vanishes. 
 
 Laurence Stanninghame's outward aspect has 
 undergone some change since last we beheld it, now 
 more than two years ago. The expression of the 
 dark, firm face, burned and bronzed by an equatorial 
 sun, heavily bearded too, has become hard and ruth- 
 less, and there is a quick alertness in the penetrating 
 glance of the clear eyes which tells of an ever-present 
 familiarity with peril. Even the movement of sitting 
 up, of suddenly awakening from sleep, yet being wide 
 awake in a moment, contains unconsciously more than 
 a suggestion of this. 
 
 164 
 
A DREAM. 
 
 A rapid, careful look on all sides. Nothing is stir- 
 ring in the sultry, penetrating heat; the palmetto 
 thatch of clustering huts away beyond the opposite 
 bank might contain no life for all of it they show. 
 Hardly a bird twittering in the reeds but does so 
 half heartedly. The man's face softens again, taking 
 on the expression it wore while he slept. 
 
 While he slept! Why could he not have slept on 
 forever, he thought, his whole being athrill with the 
 memory revived by his dreams? For his dreams 
 had been sweet wildly, entrancingly sweet. Seldom, 
 indeed, were such vouchsafed to him; but when they 
 were their effect would last, would last vividly. He 
 would treasure up their recollection, would go back 
 upon it. 
 
 Now, slumbering there in the torrid heat, by the 
 reed-fringed, crocodile-haunted lagoon, his dreams 
 had wafted him into a more than Paradise. Eyes, 
 starry with a radiant love-light, had laughed into his; 
 around his neck the twining of arms, and the soft, 
 caressing touch of soothing hands upon his life- 
 weary head ; the whisper of love-tones, deep, burning, 
 tremulous, into his ear. And from this he had awak- 
 ened, had awakened to the reality to the weird and 
 depressing surroundings of human life in its most 
 cruel and debased form ; to the recollection of scenes 
 of recurring and hideous peril, of pitiless atrocity, 
 which seemed to render the burning, brassy glare 
 even as the glare of hell; and to the consciousness of 
 similar scenes now immediately impending. Yet the 
 remembrance of that sleeping vision shut him in, sur- 
 rounded him as with a very halo, sweet, fragrant, 
 
 165 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 enthralling, rolling around his soul as a cloud of in- 
 toxicating ether. 
 
 Upon a temperament such as that of Laurence 
 Stanninghame the life of the past two years was 
 bound to tell. The hot African glow, the adventurous 
 life, with peril continually for a fellow-traveller, a 
 familiarity with weird and shocking deeds, an utter 
 indifference to human suffering and human life, had 
 strangely affected his inner self. Callous to the woes 
 of others, yet high strung to a degree, his nature at 
 this time presented a stage of complexity which was 
 utterly baffling. That mesmeric property to which 
 Hazon had alluded more than once as one of the 
 effects of the interior was upon him too. It seemed 
 as though he had somehow passed into another world, 
 so dulled was all recollection of his former life, all 
 desire to recall it. Yet one memory remained un- 
 dimmed. 
 
 " Lilith, my soul! " he murmured, his eyes wander- 
 ing over the brassy, glaring expanse of water and 
 dried-up reed-bed, as though to annihilate space and 
 distance. " Lilith, my life! It is time I looked once 
 more upon that dear face which rendered my dreams 
 so sweet." 
 
 His hand, still clasping something within his breast, 
 was drawn forth, that which hung by the steel chain 
 still inclosed within it. A small, flat metal box it 
 was, oblong in shape, and shutting so tightly that at 
 first glance it was hard to see where it opened at all. 
 But open it did, for now he is holding what it con- 
 tains holding it lovingly, almost reverently, in the 
 palm of his hand. It is a little case, green velvet 
 
 166 
 
A DREAM. 
 
 worked with flowers, and in the center, spreading 
 fantastically in spidery pattern in dark maroon, is a 
 monogram Lilith's. And in like manner is this 
 same monogram inlaid upon the lid. 
 
 Two tiny portraits it contains when opened 
 photographic portraits, small, yet clear and delicate 
 as miniatures. Lilith's eyes gaze forth, seeming to 
 shine from the inanimate cardboard as though with 
 the love-light of gladness; Lilith's beautiful form, 
 erect in characteristic attitude, the head slightly 
 thrown back, the sweet lips compressed, just a touch of 
 sadness in their serenity, as though dwelling upon the 
 recollection of that last parting; even the soft curling 
 waves of hair, rippling back from the temples, are life- 
 like in the clearness of the portrait. 
 
 The strong, sweet dream-wave still enclouding his 
 brain, Laurence stands gazing upon these, and his 
 heart is as though enwrapped with a dull tightening 
 pain. 
 
 "Sorceress! and does the spell still enthral me 
 here?" he murmurs, "here, and after all this time. 
 Have you forgotten me? Perhaps. No, that cannot 
 be and yet Time! Time dulls everything. Time 
 brings changes. Perhaps even the memory of me 
 is waning, is becoming dulled." 
 
 But the softening love-light in the pictured eyes 
 seems to contradict the conjecture. Here, in the hot 
 brassy glare of the far wilderness, in the haunts of 
 bloodshed and wrong, that sweet, pure image seems 
 clothed as with a divinity to his hungry gaze. 
 
 "Others can see you in life; others can hear the 
 music of your voice, my beloved; others can look 
 
 167 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 into the light of those eyes, can melt to the radiance 
 of your smile, while I only the image is mine, the 
 tiny oblong of hard inanimate cardboard," he mur- 
 murs, in a tone that is half weariful, half passionate. 
 " And now for the words! " 
 
 A slip of folded paper occupies the side of the little 
 tin box. This he extracts and unfolds with a touch 
 that is almost reverent, and, as his eyes wander over 
 the writing, his every faculty of soul and mind and 
 being is concentrated in rapt love upon each word. 
 For not every day will he suffer his eyes to rest upon 
 them, lest too great familiarity with them should dull 
 them with a mechanical nature when seen so often. 
 They are kept for rare occasions, and now, his waking 
 thoughts sweet with the influence of the recent dream, 
 he reckons just such an occasion. 
 
 The history of the box, the portraits, the letter, was 
 a strange one. After that last parting, as Laurence 
 was wending his way in the darkness, he became 
 aware that his breast pocket contained something 
 which was not there before. He drew it forth. It 
 was small, flat, hard, oblong. By the light of suc- 
 cessive vestas he proceeded to investigate, and there, 
 in the flickering glow, Lilith's sweet eyes gazed out 
 at him from the cardboard, daintily framed within the 
 work of her fingers, even as here in the burning glare 
 of the equatorial sun; and there, too, within the box, 
 lay a folded slip of paper covered with her hand- 
 writing her last words to him, drawing out, per- 
 petuating the echo of her last spoken ones. With 
 a thrill of love and pain, he had stood there in the 
 darkness until his last vesta had burned out, and then 
 
 168 
 
A DREAM. 
 
 the letter was not half read, but from that moment the 
 box and its contents had rested upon his heart day 
 and night through scenes of blood and of woe, 
 through every conceivable phase of hardship and 
 starvation and peril had rested there as a charm, or 
 amulet, which should shield him from harm. And 
 as such, indeed, its donor had intended it. 
 
 And now his eyes, wandering over the paper, as 
 though devouring every word, are nearing the end: 
 
 " Does this come as a surprise, my darling a very 
 sweet surprise? [it ran.] I mean it to be that. ' Is 
 it for good or for ill, this love of ours? ' you have said. 
 Surely for good. Keep, then, this image of me, my 
 beloved. Never part with it, day or night, and may 
 it ever, by the very strength of my love for you, be 
 as a talisman a ' charm ' to stand between you and 
 all peril, as you say the mental image of me has 
 already done; how, I cannot see, but it is enough for 
 me that you say so. And the consciousness that I 
 should have been the means of averting evil from you 
 is sweet, unutterably so. May it continue, and 
 strengthen me as it will mysteriously shield, you, 
 while we are far apart. My Laurence! my ideal! 
 yes, you are that ; the very moment my eyes first met 
 the firm full gaze of yours I recognized it. I knew 
 what you were, and my heart went out to you." 
 
 The blood surged hotly, in a dark flush, beneath 
 Laurence Stanninghame's bronzed face, as he pic- 
 tured the full force and passion of those parting utter- 
 ances murmured into his ear instead of confided only 
 
 169 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 to cold, inanimate paper; then the demon of cynicism 
 ingrained within him came uppermost with hateful 
 and haunting suggestions: 
 
 " She is safe? Yes. But those words were penned 
 more than two years ago. More than two years ago ! 
 That is a long time for one in the full glow of her 
 glorious youth. More than two years ago! And in 
 the joy and delight of living, what charm has the 
 memory the daily fading memory of the absent for 
 such as she? Think of it, oh, fool, not yet free from 
 the shackles of the last illusion! Think of circum- 
 stances, of surroundings, of temperament, above all, 
 of such a temperament as hers! Is your mature 
 knowledge of life to go for nothing that you are so 
 easily fooled? Ha, Ha! " 
 
 Thus laughed the demon voice in mocking gibe. 
 But he no, he would not listen; he would stifle it. 
 Those words were the outcome of one love the love 
 of a lifetime, and nothing less. 
 
 Suddenly, with multifold splash, and a great win- 
 nowing of wings, a flight of cranes and egrets arose 
 from the bank some little distance farther down. 
 Dark forms were moving among the reeds. All the 
 instincts of a constant familiarity with peril alert 
 within him, Laurence had in a moment replaced the 
 case and its contents. His Express was grasped in 
 readiness as he peered forth eagerly from his place 
 of concealment. He was the crafty, ruthless slaver 
 once more. 
 
 Then the expression, stealthy, resolute, which his 
 discovery had evoked, faded, giving way to one of 
 half-interested curiosity, as he saw that the potential 
 
 170 
 
A DREAM. 
 
 enemies more or less redoubtable assailants were 
 merely a few small boys, wandering along the reed- 
 fringed bank, jabbering light-heartedly as they 
 strolled. 
 
 Suddenly there was a splash, a smothered cry, and 
 a loud burst of shrill laughter. The sooty imps were 
 dancing and capering with glee, gazing at and chaff- 
 ing one of their number who had fallen from the 
 bank high and perpendicular there into the water 
 among the reeds. But almost as suddenly the cachin- 
 nations turned to a sharp yell of terror and warning. 
 The reeds swayed in a quivering line of undulation, 
 as though something were moving through them 
 something swift and mighty and terrible and so it 
 was. The black boy, who could swim like a fish, had 
 thrown himself clear of the reeds, deeming his chances 
 better in the open water, but after him, its long grisly 
 snout and cruel beady eyes flush with the surface, 
 glided a large crocodile. 
 
 Half instinctively the unseen spectator put up his 
 piece, then dropped it again. He might shoot the 
 reptile, but what then? All their plans would be 
 upset the villages would be alarmed, and his own 
 life greatly jeopardized. Too steep a price by far to 
 pay, to save one wretched little black imp from being 
 devoured by a crocodile, he told himself. The road 
 to wealth did not lie that way; and the cruel sneer 
 that drooped his lips as he lowered his weapon was 
 not good to behold, as he stood up to witness the end 
 of this impromptu hunt, whose quarry was human. 
 
 The boys on the bank were shouting and scream- 
 ing, partly for help, partly in the hope of scaring 
 
 171 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 the hideous saurian. That wily reptile, however, 
 heeded them not one atom. His great jaws opened 
 and closed with a snap but not on the crunch of 
 human flesh, not on the crackle of human bones. 
 The wretched little native, with incredible dexterity, 
 had swerved and dived, just eluding the hungry jaws 
 by no more than a hair's breadth. But to what avail? 
 
 For the smooth surface of the lagoon was now rip- 
 pling into long furrow-like waves. Dark objects were 
 gliding through the water with noiseless rapidity, 
 converging on the point where the human quarry 
 had now risen to breathe. More of the dreadful 
 reptiles, with which the lagoons were swarming, had 
 found out there was prey, and were bearing down to 
 obtain their share. From his concealment, Laurence 
 could see it all the glistening of the hideous snouts, 
 the round woolly head and staring, terror-stricken 
 eyeballs of the miserable little "victim. Then, with a 
 wild, piercing, soul-curdling shriek, the latter disap- 
 peared, and there arose to the surface a boil of foam, 
 bubbling upon the slimy water in a bright red stain. 
 Below, in the depths, the crocodiles were rending 
 asunder their unexpected prey. 
 
 " The moral of that episode," said the concealed 
 spectator to himself, as he turned away, " is that little 
 boys should not play too near the bank. No, there 
 is yet another the incredibly short space of time in 
 which the refined and civilized being can turn into a 
 stony-hearted demon; and the causes which accom- 
 plish such transmogrification are twain the parting 
 with all his illusions, and the parting with all his 
 cash." 
 
 172 
 
A DREAM. 
 
 These ruminations were cut short in a manner that 
 was violent, not to say alarming. Two spears whizzed 
 past him with a vicious, angry hiss, one burying itself 
 deep in the stem of the tree-fern just behind him, the 
 other flying into empty space, but grazing his ear by 
 very few inches indeed. Then, in the wild, barking, 
 hoarse-throated yell, blood-curdling in its note of hate 
 and fury, Laurence Stanninghame realized that he 
 was in a tight place a very tight place. 
 
 173 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 AN AWAKENING. 
 
 TEN or a dozen tall savages were advancing 
 through the somewhat sparse scrub. Yielding to a 
 first impulse of self-preservation, Laurence, quick as 
 thought, stepped behind the stem of the tree-fern. 
 Then he peered forth. 
 
 His first glance, keen and quick, took in every 
 detail. His assailants were fine warrior-like men, 
 ferocious looking, in great crested headgear of 
 plumes. Their bodies were adorned with cowhair 
 circlets, but, save for a short kilt of cat's-tails and hide, 
 they were quite unclad. They carried large shields of 
 the Zulu pattern, and a sheaf of gleaming spears 
 some light, others heavy and strong with the blade 
 like a cutlass. 
 
 Who, what could they be? he wondered. They 
 were too fine and stately of aspect with their lofty, 
 commanding brows, and clear, full glance to belong 
 to any of the tribes around. They were not Wangoni 
 they wore too striking a look to come of even that 
 fine race. Who could they be? 
 
 His conjectures on that head, rapid as they were, 
 ceased abruptly, for a perfect volley of spears came 
 whizzing about him, several burying their heads deep 
 within the stem of the tree-fern. Well indeed for 
 
AN AWAKENING. 
 
 him that he had so rapidly placed even that slight 
 rampart between himself and his enemies. 
 
 Deeming parley better than fight, under the cir- 
 cumstances, Laurence began quickly upon them in a 
 mixture of Swahili and Zulu, declaring that he could 
 be no enemy to them or to their race. But a loud 
 mocking laugh drowned his words; and, seeing that 
 the savages had suddenly half crouched behind their 
 shields for a charge, his quick, resourceful brain 
 grasped the situation at once. A puff of smoke, a jet 
 of flame from behind the tree-fern. One of the war- 
 riors fell forward on his shield, beating the earth with 
 his great limbs in the throes of death. 
 
 They had hardly reckoned upon this. Crouching 
 low, now they glide away among the scrub, keeping 
 well within cover. But that solitary, determined man, 
 flattened there against the tree-fern, draws no hope 
 from this. Their manoeuvre is a simple one enough. 
 They are going to enfilade the position. Surrounded 
 on all sides, and by such foes as these, where will he 
 be? for he has no cover. 
 
 But in Laurence Stanninghame's stern eyes there 
 is a lurid battle-glow, a very demon light. His 
 enemies will have his life, but they will purchase it at 
 a long price. A dead silence now reigns, and through 
 it he can hear the stealthy rustle made by his foes in 
 their efforts to surround him. Were he in the com- 
 parative security of cover, or behind a rampart of 
 any sort, he might hope, by a superhuman effort of 
 quick firing, to hold them back. As it is, he dare not 
 move from behind his tree, suspecting an intention to 
 draw him thence. 
 
 175 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 The sun flames blood-red upon the lagoon and 
 upon a flight of flamingoes winnowing above the 
 mirror-like surface, and, as though the situation were 
 not deadly and desperate enough, the shimmer of 
 light and water has, even in that brief glance, brought 
 a spot in front of his eyes, at the moment when, if 
 ever, his sight should be at its clearest and quickest. 
 The odds against him are indeed terrible. He can 
 hardly hope to come through; yet to his assailants 
 it well may prove the dearest victory they have ever 
 won. 
 
 A dark body, creeping among the scrub just a 
 glimpse and nothing more. His piece is at his shoul- 
 der, and the trigger is pressed. He has not missed 
 of that he is sure. But the echoes of his shot are 
 swallowed up, drowned in a hundred other echoes 
 reverberating upon the dim silence of the scrub. 
 
 Echoes? No. The screech and tear of missiles 
 very near to his own head, the smoke, the jets of 
 flame from half a hundred different points all this is 
 sufficient to show that these are no echoes. His own 
 people have come up. He is rescued, but only just 
 in the nick of time. 
 
 " Look out," he shouts in stentorian tones. " Don't 
 fire this way. Hazon Holmes, I'm here! Keep the 
 fools in hand. They are blazing at me." 
 
 But the crash of the volley drowns his voice, and 
 the scrub is alive with swarming natives armed with 
 firelocks of every description. Yet, above the volley 
 and the savage shouts, Laurence can hear the hoarse, 
 barking yell, can descry the forms of his late enemies 
 such as are left of them as they flee, leaping and 
 
 176 
 
AN AWAKENING. 
 
 bounding, zigzagging with incredible velocity and 
 address, to avoid the hail of bullets which is poured 
 after them. 
 
 He can realize something more something which 
 sends through his whole being a cold shudder of dis- 
 may and despair. Not his own people are these 
 otherwise so opportune arrivals. Not his own people, 
 but the inhabitants of the villages his own people 
 are on their way to raid fierce and savage cannibals 
 by habit, but with physique which will furnish excel- 
 lent slaves. He has literally fallen from the frying- 
 pan into the fire. 
 
 How he curses his raw folly in making his presence 
 known! But for this he might have slipped away 
 unnoticed during the scrimmage. Now they come 
 crowding up, brandishing their weapons and yelling 
 hideously. Although inferior both in aspect and 
 stature to those they have just defeated, these bar- 
 barians are formidable enough; terror-striking their 
 wildly ferocious mien. Many of them, too, have filed 
 teeth, which imparts to their hideous countenances 
 the most fiend-like appearance. 
 
 Is it that in the apparently fearless attitude, the 
 stern, even commanding glance of this solitary white 
 man, there is something that overawes them? It may 
 be so, for they stop short in their hostile demonstra- 
 tions and commence a parley. Yet not altogether 
 does Laurence Stanninghame feel relieved, for a 
 sudden thought surges through his brain which causes 
 a shade of paleness to sweep over his firm, bronzed 
 countenance. What if this were but a scheme to get 
 him into their power? What if he were not suffered 
 
 177 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 to die fighting, to fall into their hands alive? Why, 
 then, his fate was certain certain and inexpressibly 
 horrible. He would be butchered like a calf butch- 
 ered and eaten by these repulsive wretches. Such 
 would be his end. Now, however, to make the best 
 of the situation! 
 
 But little can he make of their tongue. Then he 
 tries them in Swahili. Ah! several of them have a 
 smattering of that. They have come to his aid at a 
 critical moment, he puts it he is willing therefore to 
 call them friends. Yet it was a pity they had. He 
 had already killed two of his assailants and was pre- 
 pared to kill them all, one after another. It was only 
 a question of time. After all, if anything, the new 
 arrivals had rather spoiled his sport. 
 
 These stared. The tone was one of patronage, of 
 condescension. This white man was but one; he was 
 alone, and in their power, yet he spoke to them as a 
 great chief might speak. Yet, was he but one? Was 
 he alone or were many others not far off? Per- 
 ceptibly their own replies took on a respectful 
 air. 
 
 The while, Laurence kept every sense on the alert, 
 indeed even to its uttermost tension. Was this parley 
 designed to keep him preoccupied while others stole 
 up treacherously to strike him down from behind? 
 To guard against this idea he stepped boldly forth 
 from the tree-fern and advanced towards the half- 
 threatening crowd. 
 
 " Where are those we have slain? " he said. " Let 
 us examine them." 
 
 " Yonder," answered some in a wandering tone, 
 178 
 
AN AWAKENING. 
 
 while others on the outskirts of the crowd scowled 
 and muttered. 
 
 Leisurely, and now moving actually among these 
 people, did Laurence fare forth to look upon the 
 bodies of his late assailants. The thoroughly bold 
 and fearless line he had adopted had told, as he was 
 all but sure it would. These wild barbarians, armed 
 to the teeth, had only to stretch forth a hand and slay 
 him, yet somehow they refrained. 
 
 The slain warriors were lying as they fell, and even 
 in death Laurence could not but admire their noble 
 proportions, and the set and martial expression of 
 their countenances. Six lay dead, while another, 
 sorely wounded, was promptly beheaded by the new 
 arrivals. These, their savage instincts all afire, set to 
 work to hack the heads off each corpse; then, tying 
 grass ropes around the ankles, the trunks were 
 dragged away to the village. 
 
 To the latter now they invited Laurence. To hesi- 
 tate might be an act of weakness sufficient to cause 
 his slaughter. To acquiesce, on the other hand, was 
 it not an act of unexampled foolhardiness thus to 
 place himself more absolutely within the power of 
 these savage cannibals? His policy of boldness had 
 availed so far; it would not do to break down at the 
 last moment. So he accepted without a shade of 
 hesitation. 
 
 "How is your tribe named?" he asked, as they 
 proceeded along. 
 
 " Wajalu," replied the man who had done chief 
 spokesman, rather a good-looking native, with almost 
 a Zulu cast of countenance. 
 
 179 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 " And the head man of yonder village, who is he? " 
 
 " I am he. I Mgara," was the reply, with a 
 satisfied smile. 
 
 "And those we have slain, they seemed fine 
 fighters. Of what race were they? " 
 
 " Ba-gcatya." 
 
 Laurence looked grave, but said nothing. Strange 
 rumours, mysterious and vague, had reached him 
 already rumours relating to an immensely powerful 
 tribe inhabiting the dark and unexplored country 
 away to the north, whose raids were extending more 
 and more, whose wrath fell alike upon all upon 
 Arab slave-hunter and the prey sought by the latter 
 a Zulu-speaking tribe said to have taken its origin in 
 some hardly recorded exodus in the days of Tshaka 
 Zulu alike in its habits and customs, and in the 
 despotism of its ruler. This nation was known as the 
 Abagcatya or Ba-gcatya, " The People of the Spider." 
 Hazon, too, believed in its existence, and Hazon was 
 a first-class authority on such subjects. And now 
 the warriors who had attacked him, and upon whom 
 the tables were so strangely turned, were Zulu in 
 aspect, and bore Zulu shields. The thing began to 
 look serious. What if that handful of warriors was 
 the outpost of a huge impi? Would not the ven- 
 geance of the latter be fearful and complete? 
 
 And, indeed, time was when Laurence Stanning- 
 hame's blood would have boiled with rage and dis- 
 gust at the indignities offered to the remains of these 
 noble-looking warriors. The trunks dragged along 
 by the heels seemed nothing now but a bleeding mass. 
 The heads, too, stuck upon spear points, were borne 
 
 1 80 
 
AN AWAKENING. 
 
 aloft above the rabble. To them were all sorts of 
 mockeries addressed. 
 
 Now, however, it was different. The hardening 
 process had been, if anything, all too complete. A 
 man had his hands full even if occupied solely in tak- 
 ing care of himself this had become the sum total 
 of his creed. 
 
 As they drew near the village, the Wajalu set up 
 the most hideously discordant war-song he had ever 
 heard in his life. They were met in the gate by a 
 crowd of women howling and blowing horns, and 
 otherwise adding to the horrific tumult. These, on 
 beholding the stranger, imagined him a prisoner, and 
 began clamouring for his death, pointing to the blood- 
 stained place of slaughter where such were wont to be 
 immolated. 
 
 And then once more, hearing the shout of de- 
 moniacal laughter which arose from some of the 
 fighting men, noting a ferociously sardonic grin upon 
 not a few faces, Laurence felt his former misgivings 
 all return. Accustomed as he was to perilous situa- 
 tions, to horrifying sights, the strain upon his nerves 
 was becoming painfully intense. Fortunate, indeed, 
 for him that those nerves were now hardened to the 
 cold consistency of cast steel by almost daily trial. 
 
 " Men of the Wajalu," he began, in a decisive, com- 
 manding voice, " well is it for all here that I am 
 among you this day as a friend and guest, for, but for 
 that, this village was doomed. You know not who I 
 am, but you shall know in time. Then you will know 
 that but for my presence here to-day the spear and 
 the slave-yoke would have been your portion, that 
 
 181 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 of your village the flames. Now I give you your 
 lives." 
 
 The words, hurriedly rendered to those who could 
 not understand by those who could, perhaps more 
 the haughty indifference of his tone, his bearing, his 
 appearance in general, hard and determined, over- 
 awed the crowd. No further voice was raised against 
 him. Their advances of hospitality became even 
 profuse. 
 
 He was shown to the best hut. But before he 
 entered it he could not avoid seeing the bodies of his 
 late assailants in process of dismemberment as though 
 they had been slaughtered cattle, and, inured as he 
 was to horrible and sickening sights, never had he 
 been conscious of so overpowering a feeling of repul- 
 sion as now. The cannibal atrocities of these human 
 beasts, the glowering heads stuck all over the 
 stockade, the latest addition thereto being those of 
 the slain Ba-gcatya, the all-pervading influence of 
 death brooding over this demoniacal haunt, even as 
 the ever-present circlings of carrion birds high in mid- 
 air all this weighed upon his mind until he could 
 have blown out his own brains for sheer horror and 
 loathing. 
 
 But upon this dark, enshrouding shadow, piercing, 
 partly dispelling it, came a ray of searching light 
 sweet, golden, penetrating. The vision of his mid- 
 day slumbers Lilith. But a few hours had gone By 
 since that dream, and within them he had fought 
 fiercely for his life; and now, in this hell-haunt, the 
 sweet entrancement of it came back to charm away, 
 
 182 
 
AN AWAKENING. 
 
 as with a hallowed spell, the black horrors that hung 
 over his soul as though on vulture wing. 
 
 Presently Mgara entered, followed by people bear- 
 ing food cooked goat-flesh and millet and plantains. 
 From the smoking meat Laurence recoiled with a 
 loathing he could hardly repress. It was too suggest- 
 ive of the foul and fearful feast proceeding outside; 
 and even when the chief, with a furtive half-smile, 
 assured him he might safely partake of it, yet he could 
 not touch it, contenting himself with the other fare, 
 cereal and vegetable. 
 
 After some further talk Mgara withdrew, and Lau- 
 rence, left alone, gave his meditations the rein once 
 more. Never had he loathed the sinister occupation 
 upon which he was embarked as he did now, possibly 
 because the term of the undertaking was nearing its 
 end. " I predict you will come back with what you 
 want," Lilith had said, and her words had been fully 
 verified. He had gained riches even beyond his 
 wildest dreams, but how he had gained them traffick- 
 ing in human flesh and blood, yea, even human life 
 she should never know. It seemed to him as though 
 he were already returning with that which should 
 place all the world at his feet. 
 
 But for once he seemed to forget that he had not 
 yet returned not yet. And as the drums and yelling 
 of the barbarous orgy outside gradually sank into the 
 silence of night, even that, strange to say, failed to 
 remind him. 
 
 183 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 AN ANGEL UNAWARES. 
 
 NOT much sleep did Laurence get that night 
 such, indeed, as he obtained being of the " with one 
 eye open " order. Simple trust in anybody or any- 
 thing was not one of his failings, as we think we have 
 shown; wherefore having carefully scrutinized the 
 plastered walls of his rude quarters, he took the pre- 
 caution to secure the wicker door from the inside, and 
 lay down with his Express, so covering the same 
 that but the very slightest movement of the hand 
 would be needed on his part in order to rake from 
 stem to stern whosoever should be so ill-advised as 
 to essay a stealthy ingress. 
 
 Still more would he have applauded his own fore- 
 sight in taking these precautions could he have 
 known that a large portion of the night was spent by 
 his " entertainers " keenly debating the expediency 
 of treacherously putting him to death. Here, it was 
 urged, was an opportunity such as might never again 
 come their way. Here was one of the leaders of that 
 dreaded band of slave-hunters one whose very name 
 was a terror and a scourge. Here was this man 
 actually in their hands. It was in their power to slay 
 him without the smallest risk to themselves. Let 
 them not miss such an opportunity of setting up his 
 head above their gates. As for his party, now that 
 
 184 
 
AN ANGEL UNAWARES. 
 
 its existence was known, they could surprise it, and 
 slaughter every man it contained. They, the Wajalu, 
 were numerous, and had good fire-weapons, and knew 
 how to use them. Why should they not rid the land 
 of this terror? It was in their power to do so. 
 
 This sounded all very plausible; many tales do, 
 until their other side is told. And the other side was 
 unfolded by the head man, Mgara, and others, much 
 to this effect: The slave-hunters were more numer- 
 ous than many there imagined. They had been re- 
 inforced by a large body of Wangoni fierce and 
 formidable fighters. To surprise and overwhelm such 
 a force would be impossible, and in the event of failure 
 what would their own fate be? Moreover, it was cer- 
 tain that the slavers were much better armed than the 
 Wajalu. Their best policy would be to treat the man 
 well; he had already given what was as good as an 
 assurance of his protection. These counsels pre- 
 vailed. 
 
 And soon the wisdom thereof was made manifest, 
 for with earliest dawn one of their scouts came run- 
 ning in with the news that the slave-hunters were 
 approaching; that they were in great numbers, and 
 mostly armed with rifles; that it was too late for re- 
 treat, in that a large detachment had already gained 
 a position which was practically such as to surround 
 the village. 
 
 The effect of this news was to stamp with an expres- 
 sion of the most terror-stricken despair the counte- 
 nance of every man who heard it. But Mgara, 
 remembering the words of their white "guest," 
 hurried to the hut where the latter was sleeping. 
 
 185 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 Yet as the head man approached the door with a 
 quick deferential word of greeting, Laurence Stan- 
 ninghame was wide awake. The talk outside, the 
 rapid note of fear underlying the tone, had not escaped 
 him, and even though he understood not a word of 
 their talk among themselves he knew what these 
 -people wanted of him. And the situation looked 
 serious, for he felt far less confident of his ability to 
 redeem his half-implied pledge than when, moved by 
 the first instincts of self-preservation, he had given 
 the same. 
 
 Well, and what then? The extinction of this horde 
 of cannibal barbarians was a mere trifle, a drop in the 
 bucket, when looked at beside other dark and ruthless 
 deeds which he had witnessed, and even actually 
 aided in. But hard, pitiless, utterly impervious to 
 human suffering as he had become, there was one 
 point in Laurence Stanninghame's character a weak 
 point, he regarded it which he had never succeeded 
 in eradicating. He could not forget or ignore a good 
 turn. These people, monstrous, repulsive as they 
 were in his sight, had saved his life twice indeed 
 the first time unconsciously from the Ba-gcatya, the 
 second time from themselves. They might have slain 
 him barbarously at almost any moment he was but 
 one among a number; yet they had not, but instead 
 had treated him hospitably and well. He was re- 
 solved, at any risk, to save them. 
 
 Mgara, entering, lost no time in making known 
 his errand. 
 
 " O stranger guest, whom we have treated as a 
 friend," he began, " save us from the slave-yoke, and 
 
 j86 
 
AN ANGEL UNAWARES. 
 
 the guns and spears of your people, for they are upon 
 us already.' 5 And rapidly he narrated the tidings 
 brought in by the scouts. 
 
 " I will do what I can, Mgara," answered Laurence. 
 " Listen. All your people must retire within the 
 huts; not one must be seen. Further, two of your 
 men must bear a token from me to El Khanac, my 
 brother-chief, who leads yonder host, and that at 
 once. Now, call those two men." 
 
 Swift of resource, Laurence picked up a flat piece 
 of wood and, scraping it smooth with his knife, wrote 
 upon it in pencil: 
 
 " / owe these people my life. Keep ours in hand until 
 ive meet" 
 
 "These are the messengers, Mgara?" he went on, 
 as the head man returned accompanied by two men. 
 " Are they reliable, and above all, fearless? " 
 
 " They are both, Sidi," answered the chief, now very 
 deferential. " One is my son, the other my brother's 
 son." 
 
 " Good. Let them now get a piece of white flaxen 
 cloth, and bind it and this token to a staff. Then let 
 them seek out El Khanac yonder." 
 
 In a moment this was done, and, bearing the im- 
 promptu white flag and the writing on the board, the 
 two young men started off into the scrub. 
 
 " Retire now into your houses, Mgara, you and all 
 your people. I alone will stand within the gate, and 
 maybe it will be well with you." 
 
 The Wajalu, who had been hanging on every word, 
 now hastened to obey; nevertheless there was terror 
 and dejection in every face. And their thoughts were 
 
 187 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 much the same as those of their would-be deliverer. 
 Had he the power to make good his word? 
 
 The hot morning hours dragged slowly by, and still 
 no sign of attack. The village was a deserted place, 
 in its brooding, death-like silence, so still, so complete 
 as to render distinctly audible the sweep of the wings 
 of carrion birds circling aloft. The severed heads 
 grinned hideously from the stockade, and the un- 
 earthly molten stillness of the silent noon was such as 
 to get upon the nerves of the ordinary watcher. But 
 he who now stood there had no nerves not in a 
 matter of this kind. His experiences had been such 
 as to kill and crush them out of all being. 
 
 Ha! What was this? The crows and vultures, 
 which, emboldened by the deathly silence, had been 
 circling nearer and nearer to the tree tops, suddenly 
 and with one accord shot upward, now seeming mere 
 specks in the blue ether. Then the silence was broken 
 in appalling fashion. Rending the air in a terrific note 
 of savagery and blood-thirst, there burst forth the 
 harsh, hissing war-yell of the Wangoni. 
 
 It came from the forest edge on the farther side of 
 the village. Laurence realized, with vexation and 
 concern, that his merciful plan would be extremely 
 difficult to carry out. That these ferocious auxilaries 
 should be allowed to initiate the attack he had not 
 reckoned upon; and now to restrain them would be 
 a herculean task. 
 
 "Back, back!" he shouted, meeting the crowd of 
 charging savages who, shield and spear uplifted, were 
 bearing down in full career upon the village. 
 
 In the headlong, exciting moment of their charge 
 188 
 
AN ANGEL UNAWARES. 
 
 they hardly recognized him. Laurence Stanning- 
 hame's life hung upon a hair. Then, with a great 
 burst of laughter, mocking, half defiant, they surged 
 past him. They " saw red," and no power on earth 
 seemed able to stop those human wolves now rushing 
 upon their helpless prey. 
 
 "Back, back!" thundered Laurence again. "The 
 village is dead, I tell you. It is the abode of death! " 
 
 This told. Barbarians have a shrinking horror of 
 infectious disease. Thoughts of smallpox, cholera, 
 what not, arose in the minds of these. No other con- 
 sideration on earth could have restrained that charge, 
 yet this one did. They stopped short. 
 
 " Lo! the stillness, the silence," went on Laurence, 
 pointing to the lifeless village. " Would you, too, 
 travel the voiceless and weaponless path of death? " 
 
 But mutterings both loud and deep went through 
 the Wangoni ranks. What was this? They had 
 been ordered to charge been signalled to charge, 
 and now they were forbidden to enter the village. 
 "El Afa" (the serpent) had been absent from the expe- 
 dition, and now turned up here, alone. Savages are 
 ever suspicious, and these were no exception to the 
 rule of their kind. 
 
 " Whau, what does it mean?" half sneered their 
 leader, scowling resentfully upon Laurence as the 
 warriors crowded around, growling like a pack of 
 baffled wolves. " Had we not better send some in to 
 see if these dogs are indeed all dead? " 
 
 " Not so, Mashumbwe," was the unconcerned reply. 
 " Tarry until the others arrive, then will we act 
 together." 
 
 189 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 But a furious clamour arose at the words. The 
 Wangoni did not entirely believe the explanation; 
 and to further their doubts there now arose from the 
 inside of the huts the puling wail of infants which the 
 mothers had not been entirely able to stifle. 
 
 "Au, we will add those to the death number, at 
 least," said the chief, giving the signal to his followers 
 to advance. 
 
 "Not so!" said Laurence decisively. "Hearken, 
 Mashumbwe, you are chief of your own people, but 
 I am chief of all of all! Not a man stirs until El 
 Khanac comes up. Not a man, do you hear? " 
 
 Mashumbwe tossed back his ringed head, and his 
 eyes glared. He was a tall, fine savage, with all the 
 pride of mien inseparable from his rank and Zulu 
 blood. Thus they stood, the savage and the white 
 man, looking into each other's eyes; the one in a 
 blaze of haughty anger, the other cool, resolute, and 
 absolutely unflinching. How it would end Heaven 
 alone knew. 
 
 But now the very thing that Laurence had been 
 longing for happened. A hurried murmur ran 
 through the Wangoni lines. The main body of the 
 slave-hunters had emerged from the scrub, and had 
 quietly surrounded the village. Laurence was satis- 
 fied. He had gained time so far, and with it his 
 object. 
 
 " What astonishing freak is this, Stanninghame? " 
 said Hazon, who, having taken in the situation at a 
 glance, was promptly at his colleague's side, display- 
 ing, too, the piece of pencilled board. " What be- 
 comes of our pact when such a consideration as this 
 
 190 
 
AN ANGEL UNAWARES. 
 
 comes in?" he continued, meaningly tapping the 
 inscription on the board. " Have we obtained all 
 we wanted on those terms up till now, or not? " 
 
 " No, we haven't; but now, having obtained almost 
 all we wanted, we can afford to do this for once. If 
 it had been your life instead of mine these people had 
 saved twice, Hazon, I would willingly have spared 
 theirs; now will you do less for me?" 
 
 " But it will breed a mutiny among our people," 
 said Hazon doubtfully, with a half glance at the crowd 
 of scowling Wangoni. 
 
 " Oh, a mutiny! By all means. We shall know 
 how to deal with that, as we did before." 
 
 It seemed as though such knowledge were about 
 to be called into requisition, for the announcement 
 that all this " property " was to be relinquished abso- 
 lutely was received by the more important section of 
 the slave-hunters with a sullen silence more eloquent 
 even that the wolfish growls of the Wangoni. The 
 latter's disappointment lay in the fact that they were 
 balked in giving vent to their instincts of sheer sav- 
 agery the delight of plunder and massacre. That 
 of the former, however, was a more weighty factor to 
 reckon with; for the smatter of civilization in the 
 Arab and Swahili element had brought with it the 
 commercial instinct of cupidity. It speaks volumes, 
 therefore, for the ascendency which these two resolute 
 white men had set up over their wild and lawless fol- 
 lowing, that the latter should have contented itself 
 with mere sullen obedience. 
 
 Having gained his point Laurence returned within 
 the village, and, calling Mgara, suggested that some 
 
 191 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 of the people should carry forth food to their unwel- 
 come visitors. 
 
 " I fear it may leave scarcity in your midst," he 
 added; "but well-fed men are in better mood than 
 hungry ones, Mgara, and are you not spared the 
 slave-yoke and the spear? " 
 
 The head man, with many deferential expressions 
 of gratitude, agreed, and soon a file of women and 
 boys were told off, bringing goats and millet and rice 
 for the slave-hunters. As they passed tremblingly 
 among the ranks of the Wangoni the latter handled 
 their great spears meaningly, and with much the 
 same expression of countenance as a cat might wear 
 when contemplating an inaccessible bird cage. 
 
 " Ho, dog! " cried Mashumbwe, as a youth passed 
 before him without making obeisance. " Do you dare 
 stand before me before me! thou spawn of these 
 man-eating jackals? Lo! lie prostrate forever." 
 And with the words he half threw, half thrust his 
 great spear into the unfortunate lad's body. The 
 blood spurted forth in a great jet, and, staggering, the 
 boy fell. 
 
 " Au! And am I to be defiled with the blood of 
 such as this," growled the chief, upon whom several 
 red drops had squirted. " Let that carrion be re- 
 moved." 
 
 Several of the Wangoni sprang forward, and, as the 
 quivering body was dragged away, these savages gave 
 vent to their pent-up ferocity by stabbing it again and 
 again. Having tasted blood they rolled their eyes 
 around in search of further victims. But the remain- 
 ing Wajalu had withdrawn in terror: and well for all 
 
 192 
 
AN ANGEL UNAWARES. 
 
 concerned that it was so, otherwise the Wangoni, 
 inspired by the example of their chief, would certainly 
 have commenced a massacre which even the prestige 
 and authority of Hazon and Laurence combined 
 would have been powerless to quell. But there was 
 no one outside to begin upon, and, though a trucu- 
 lent, unruly crowd, their interests in the long run lay 
 in submitting to the authority of the white chiefs. 
 
 So the Wajalu rejoiced much, if tremblingly, as the 
 last of the dreaded host disappeared. For good or 
 for ill their village was spared spared to continue 
 its most revolting forms of savagery and cannibalism 
 and parricide spared for good or for ill in that it had 
 entertained an angel unawares in the person of that 
 hard, pitiless, determined slave-hunter, Laurence 
 Stanninghame. 
 
 193 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 DISSENSIONS. 
 
 " WELL, I'm uncommonly glad I was out of that 
 affair yesterday, Stanninghame. But it isn't like you, 
 letting those poor devils off, eh? " 
 
 Thus Holmes, as the two were leisurely pursuing 
 their way, somewhat on the rear flank of the slave- 
 party. 
 
 " I don't know. You see they let me off, and I 
 didn't want to be outdone in civility even by a lot of 
 scurvy dogs who eat each other. There was no feel- 
 ing about the matter." 
 
 Before the other could pursue the subject, the 
 sound of faint groans, and pleading in an unknown 
 tongue, was heard just ahead. With it, too, the 
 sound of blows. 
 
 " Some devilish work going forward again," 
 muttered Holmes, with savage disgust. 
 
 " You can't make omelettes without breaking eggs," 
 was the indifferent reply. And then they came upon 
 a not entirely unfamiliar scene. 
 
 On the ground crouched three human figures, 
 wretched-looking and emaciated to the last degree. 
 Disease and exhaustion had overpowered them, and 
 they were begging to be left to die. Standing over 
 them in threatening attitude was Lutali, with some 
 half-dozen of the slavers. 
 
 194 
 
DISSENSIONS. 
 
 " They are too far gone to feel the whip," Lutali 
 was saying. " Clearly they are of no further use. 
 You, Murad, shorten me the shadow of yonder dog. 
 We shall see." 
 
 The man named, a savage-looking ruffian, stepped 
 forward, grinning with delight. Just as he was swing- 
 ing up his scimitar, Holmes burst forth : 
 
 " Hold on, Lutali ! Give the poor devil another 
 show." 
 
 Half turning his head at this interruption, there 
 was that look upon the hawk-like features of the Arab 
 which at times so strangely resembled Hazon. His 
 keen eyes darted haughty reproof at Holmes, for he 
 was a sort of supercargo of the slave department, and 
 relished not this interference. Then, turning back, 
 he once more gave the signal. Down flashed the 
 great blade. There was a dull swooshing thud, and 
 the headless trunk was deluging the earth. 
 
 The effect, however, upon the other two exhausted 
 wretches was magical. With a despairing effort they 
 raised themselves up and staggered on, to the accom- 
 paniment of not a few blows by way of recognition of 
 their malingering. Lutali, who had uttered no word, 
 and whose impassive countenance had not moved a 
 feature, stalked gravely on. 
 
 " Why could we not have prevented this? " burst 
 forth Holmes, whom a sort of morbid fascination 
 seemed to root to the spot. 
 
 " Because it would have been the very acme of 
 insanity to attempt such a thing. Lutali, in common 
 with the rest, is in far too ugly a mood, after yester- 
 day, to be fooled with needlessly. Besides, all that 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 sentiment is simply thrown away. These people, 
 remember, are atrocious brutes, who eat their own 
 fathers and mothers. It is positively a work of 
 charity to enslave them. Once they are off the march 
 they are fairly well treated, better, in fact, that they 
 treat each other and, of course, no more canni- 
 balism." 
 
 " That may be. But I wish to Heaven I could blot 
 out these two years as though they had never been. 
 The recollection of the horrors one has been through 
 will haunt me for life. I feel like blowing my brains 
 out in sheer disgust. Why did I ever come? " 
 
 It was not the first time Holmes had burst forth in 
 this fashion, as we have shown. Laurence looked 
 keenly at him. 
 
 " There is a worse thing to haunt one's life than 
 recollection," he said, " and that is anticipation." 
 
 "Of what?" asked Holmes shortly. 
 
 The other touched the muzzle of his rifle, then his 
 own forehead. 
 
 " It's that or this," he said, pointing to the ghastly 
 trunk and the severed head which lay before them. 
 " You don't suppose I should have adopted this sweet 
 trade from choice, I suppose? No. Hard necessity, 
 my dear chap. If anybody has to go under and 
 somebody always has to I prefer that it shall not 
 be me." 
 
 Holmes made no reply for a while, so they left the 
 spot, walking in silence. Then Laurence went on: 
 
 " Now we are on the subject, I don't know that you 
 would have come out any the better had we left you 
 behind at Johannesburg. For you were going the 
 
 196 
 
DISSENSIONS. 
 
 wrong way. You were a precious sight too fond of 
 hanging around bars, and that sort of thing grows. 
 In fact, you were more than once a trifle shall we 
 say ' muddled.' Not to put too fine a point upon it, 
 you were on your way to the deuce. I know it, for 
 I've seen it so often before, and you know it too." 
 
 " I believe you're right there," assented Holmes. 
 
 "Well, then, we owe our first duty to ourselves; 
 wherefore, my soft-hearted young friend, it is better 
 to spend a year or two raking in a fortune and ameli- 
 orating the lot of humanity, than to die in a state of 
 soak, and a disused shaft, on or around the Rand, even 
 as did Pulman the day before we left." 
 
 " I don't believe that same fortune will do us any 
 good/' urged Holmes gloomily. " There is the curse 
 of blood upon it." 
 
 u The curse of my grandmother," laughed the other. 
 
 There was no affectation about Laurence Stanning- 
 hame's indifference. It was perfectly genuine. 
 Strong-nerved constitutionally, callous, hard-hearted 
 through stress of circumstances, such sights as that 
 just witnessed told not one atom upon him. In the 
 sufferings of the miserable wretches he saw only a 
 lurid alternative his own. In them, toiling along, 
 wearily, dejectedly, beneath the chain or yoke, he saw 
 himself, toiling, grinding, at some sordid and utterly 
 repellent form of labour, for a miserable pittance; no 
 ray of light, no redeeming rest or enjoyment to 
 sweeten life until that life should end. In them, cower- 
 ing, writhing, beneath the driver's brutal lash, he saw 
 himself, ever lashed and stung by the torturing con- 
 sciousness of what might have been, by the recollec- 
 
 197 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 tion of what had been. Or did they fall exhausted, 
 fainting, to die, or to undergo decapitation to insure 
 that such exhaustion should not open even a feeble 
 possibility of escape, there too, he saw himself sink- 
 ing, borne down by the sheer blank hopelessness of 
 fate, taking refuge in the Dark Unknown, his end the 
 grave of the suicide. It was himself or them, and he 
 preferred that it should be them. Preyer or preyed 
 upon such was the iron immutable law of life, from 
 man in his highest development to the minutest of 
 insects; and with this law he w r as but complying, not 
 in wanton cruelty, but in cold, passive ruthlessness. 
 
 Further, the sufferings of these people were only 
 transitory. They would be much better off when 
 the journey was ended and they were disposed of 
 better off indeed than many a free person in civilized 
 and Christian lands. Besides, such races as these, 
 low down as they were in the scale of humanity, 
 suffered but little. It needs imagination, refinement, 
 to accentuate suffering. To anything approaching 
 such attributes, these were utter strangers. They 
 were mere animals. Men dealt in sheep and cattle, 
 in order to live, in horses and other beasts of burden, 
 why not in these, who were even lower than the 
 higher animals? 
 
 This theory of their sinister occupation Hazon 
 thoroughly indorsed. 
 
 " Depend upon it, Stanninghame," he said, " ours 
 is the right view to take of it the only view. This 
 is ' a world of plunder and prey/ as Tennyson puts 
 it, and we have got to prey or be preyed upon. You, 
 for instance, seem to have fulfilled the latter role, 
 
 198 
 
DISSENSIONS. 
 
 hitherto, and it seems only right you should have 
 your turn now. To cite the latest instance, all this 
 rotten scrip and market-rigging finished you off, and 
 what was that but rascality? " 
 
 " Of course, I've been plundered, swindled, all 
 along the line, ever since I can remember. I'm tired 
 
 of that d d respectability, Hazon. It doesn't 
 
 pay. It never has paid. This, however, does." 
 
 The other smiled significantly at the word. 
 
 " Respectability yes," he said. " Look at your 
 type of success, your self-made man, swelling out of 
 his white waistcoat in snug self-complacency, your 
 pattern British merchant, your millionaire financier, 
 what is he but a slave-dealer, a slave-driver, a blood- 
 sucker. What has become of your little all, swamped 
 in those precious Rand companies, Stanninghame? 
 Gone to bloat more unimpeachable white waistcoats; 
 gone to add yet more pillars to the temple of pattern 
 respectability." 
 
 " That's so," assented Laurence, with something 
 between a sneer and a laugh, knocking the ashes out 
 of his pipe. " Yet that same crowd of respectable 
 swindlers would yelp in horror at us and our enter- 
 prise. ' Piratical,' they'd call it, eh? A hanging 
 matter! " 
 
 " Swindlers no. Swindler is English for a con- 
 victed person. Yet the percentage of the props and 
 pillars of financial success and mercantile respecta- 
 bility who, in the self-candour and secrecy of their 
 sleepless hours, are honestly unable to recall to mind 
 one or more occasions when Portland, or Dartmoor, 
 or Simonstown, or the Kowie loomed more than near, 
 
 199 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 cannot be a vast one; which, for present purposes, 
 may be taken to mean that if you have got to make 
 money you must make it anyhow, or not at all 
 ' anyhow ' covering such methods as are involved in 
 the conventional term ' rascality.' If you have got it 
 you can run as straight as you like. We haven't got 
 it at least not enough of it yet and so we are 
 making it, and, like the rest of the world, making 
 it anyhow. There's the whole case in a nutshell, 
 Stanninghame." 
 
 " Why, of course. But, if only we could bring 
 Holmes round to that pre-eminently sensible stand- 
 point! I never could have believed the fellow would 
 turn out such an ass. I am more than sorry, Hazon, 
 that I should have influenced you to bring him along." 
 
 " Oh, Holmes is young, and hardly knows the 
 meaning of the term ' hard experience,' as we know 
 it. Still, in his way, he's useful enough, and first-rate 
 in a fight; and when he comes to bank his share he'll 
 forget to feel over particular as to how he acquired it. 
 That's mere ordinary human nature, and Holmes is 
 far from being an abnormal unit." 
 
 " No, but he still affects a conscience. What if he 
 goes back and takes on that blue-eyed girl he was 
 smitten with, and, turning soft, incontinently gives 
 us away? " 
 
 " Are you on the croak, Stanninghame? That's 
 odd. Here, how's your pulse? Let's time it." And 
 Hazon reached out his hand. 
 
 "Well, yes; it is unusual. But it's d d hot, 
 
 and the steaminess of it depresses me at times," re- 
 turned Laurence, with a queer, reckless laugh. 
 
 200 
 
DISSENSIONS. 
 
 " He won't give us away, never fear," said Hazon 
 carelessly. " He won't take on that girl, because 
 she'll have forgotten him long ago; that, too, being 
 ordinary human nature. And nobody ever did give 
 me away yet. I don't somehow think anybody is 
 ever likely to." 
 
 Both sides of this remark struck a chord within 
 Laurence's mind; the first, a jarring one, since it 
 voiced a misgiving which had at times assailed him- 
 self, specially at such periods of depression as this 
 under which he was now suffering. For the second, 
 the tone was characteristic of the speaker and the sub- 
 ject. It seemed to flash forth more than a menace, 
 in its stern, unrelenting ruthlessness of purpose, while 
 the words seemed to recall the warning so darkly let 
 fall by Rainsford and others regarding his present 
 confederate. " Other men have gone up country 
 with Hazon, but not one of them has ever returned." 
 To himself the words contained no menace. He 
 trusted Hazon, felt thoroughly able to take care of 
 himself, and, moreover, was as little likely to violate 
 the secrecy of their enterprise as Hazon himself. But 
 what of Holmes? With all his hard, callous un- 
 scrupulousness, Laurence had no desire that harm 
 should befall Holmes. In a measure, he felt respon- 
 sible for him. 
 
 " Don't you worry about Holmes," said Hazon, as 
 though reading his thoughts. " We can put him to 
 all the show part of the business, reserving the more 
 serious line for our own immediate supervision. And 
 the time may come when we can do very well with 
 Holmes, in short, when three white men may be better 
 
 201 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 than two. We are very near the Ba-gcatya country, 
 and an impi of them on the raid will give us as much 
 trouble as we can do with ; and I've seen signs of late 
 which seem to point that way." 
 
 " Isn't it a crowded-on business this Ba-gcatya 
 terror, eh? " said Laurence, lazily puffing out rings of 
 blue smoke, which hung upon the hot, still atmos- 
 phere as though they never meant to disperse. " I 
 expect their strength is as exaggerated as their dash. 
 Why, this part is not altogether unexplored, yet there 
 is no record of an exceptionally strong tribe here- 
 abouts." 
 
 Hazon smiled pityingly. 
 
 " That great god, the African explorer, don't know 
 everything," he said " no, not quite everything, 
 although he thinks he does. Anyway, he frequently 
 manages to get a pretty muddled-up idea of things 
 and places hereabout a muddle which the natives of 
 this land would rather thicken than dispel. For 
 instance, he will ask the name of a river or a moun- 
 tain, and when the other party to the talk repeats his 
 question, as natives invariably do to gain time for 
 answering, he takes this for the answer, and forthwith 
 the thing is dubbed by a word that simply means 
 ' river ' or ' mountain/ in one or other of the hundred 
 and fifty tongues which prevail hereabout. No, the 
 existence of the Ba-gcatya is not chronicled, simply 
 because the explorer was fortunate enough not to fall 
 in with them. Had he done so, he would probably 
 never have returned to chronicle anything. But, get 
 one or two of our Wangoni to talk, and he may, or 
 may not, tell you something about them; for the Ba- 
 
 202 
 
DISSENSIONS. 
 
 gcatya are, like the Wangoni themselves, a Zulu off- 
 shoot, only far more conservative in the old Zulu 
 traditions, and of purer blood. They are a much finer 
 race, indeed I believe them to be as powerful and well 
 disciplined as the Zulus themselves were under Cety- 
 wayo. I was all through the war of '79, you know, 
 and that pretty scar I carry about as an ornament 
 represents the expiring effort of an awful tough cus- 
 tomer, who had lost too much blood to be able to 
 strike altogether home. I call it my Isandhlwana 
 medal." 
 
 " That where you captured it, eh? " said Laurence, 
 with interest, for the story was new to him. He 
 remembered first noticing the great scar upon Hazon's 
 chest the day he visited him when ill in bed at Johan- 
 nesburg, but he had never asked its history ; indeed, it 
 was characteristic of the strange relations in which 
 these two men stood to each other that, notwith- 
 standing all this time of close comradeship, neither 
 should ever have asked the other any question of a 
 personal nature. Characteristic, too, was it of 
 Hazon's method that this piece of information should 
 have been vouchsafed as it was. Many an experience, 
 strange and startling, had he narrated from time to 
 time, but never for the sake of narrating it. If any- 
 thing occurred to bring it forth, out it would come, 
 carrying, perhaps, others in its train, but ever in due 
 sequence. Even Holmes, the impulsive, who, being 
 young, was the ' natural man ' of the trio, had long 
 since learned that to ask Hazon for a yarn was the 
 direct way not to get one out of him. 
 
 " Yes," went on Hazon, " that's where I captured it. 
 203 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER 
 
 " Speaking with some experience, Isandhlwana is the 
 toughest thing that has ever travelled my way, and I 
 don't hanker after any repetition of it with ' The 
 
 people of the Spider -' Why, what does this 
 
 mean?" 
 
 The words, quick, hurried, broke off. On the faces 
 of both men was a look of keen, anxious alertness. 
 For a wild and fierce clamour had suddenly arisen 
 and was drawing nearer and nearer, loud, swelling, 
 threatening. 
 
 204 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 TWO PERILS. 
 
 " JUST what I feared," said Hazon calmly, but with 
 ever so faint a glance at his confederate. " Our 
 people are in revolt." 
 
 Both men rose to their feet, but leisurely, and 
 turned to confront the approaching tumult. And 
 formidable enough this was. The Wangoni advanced 
 in a compact mass, beating their shields with their 
 spear-hafts, yelling in concert a shrill, harsh battle- 
 song, into which they had managed to import an 
 indescribable note of defiance, announcing their 
 intention of returning to " eat up " those they had so 
 weakly spared the previous day. On either side of 
 them came the Arab and Swahili element, in silence, 
 however, but a silence which was no less ominous 
 than their sullen and scowling looks, and the almost 
 significant gestures wherewith they handled their 
 rifles. 
 
 " What do they want, Lutali? " said Hazon, turning 
 to the Arab who, with Holmes, had just joined the 
 pair. But Lutali shrugged his shoulders, and his 
 hawk-like features scarce moved. Then he said: 
 
 " Who may think to strive against the hand of 
 Allah and that of his Prophet? Yon foul dogs, even 
 they so great is the mercy of Allah even they 
 might have been turned into good Moslemia, even 
 as other such have been before them. Yet we we 
 
 205 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 have left them to wallow in tt e mire of their cannibal 
 abominations. Our people are not satisfied, El 
 Khanac, and they fear that ill may come of it." 
 
 "A magnificent and comfortable hypocrisy that," 
 said Laurence, in English. " Such combination of 
 soul-saving and slave-selling is unique." Then, in 
 Swahili, " But what do they want, Lutali? " 
 
 " They want to set right the error of yesterday." 
 
 " But the Wangoni don't care a grain of rice for 
 Allah and his Prophet," he went on. " Why, then, 
 are they dissatisfied? " 
 
 " They are instruments in the hands of those who 
 do. It is so written. Allah is great. Who may call 
 in question his decrees? " replied the Arab, in the 
 same level monotone. " Let the people do their will, 
 which is also the will of Allah." 
 
 During this conversation the whole party had 
 halted, and now stood in a great semicircle around 
 the white leaders. Then Mashumbwe spoke, and his 
 words, though fairly courteous, managed to cover an 
 extremely defiant tone. 
 
 " Our people are dissatisfied, father," he said, ad- 
 dressing Hazon. " They desire to return home." 
 
 "Wherefore?" asked Hazon shortly. 
 
 " Au! they came forth to ' eat up ' other tribes, not 
 to spare such. They are dissatisfied." 
 
 " They'd better have their own way," muttered 
 Hazon, in English. " You are sacrificing all we have 
 done and obtained this trip to an empty whim. How 
 does that pan out, Stanninghame? " 
 
 " I hate to go back on my word," was the reply ; 
 " still more to be bullied into it." 
 
 206 
 
TWO PERILS. 
 
 "Well said!" declared Holmes warmly. 
 
 The insurgents, reading the expression upon the 
 countenances of these two, broke forth into tumult 
 once more. Groans and mutterings arose among the 
 Arab contingent, while the Wangoni uttered wild 
 laughing whoops of defiance. Nothing would be 
 easier than to slay the white leaders. A single volley 
 would lay them low. The position was critical, peril- 
 ous to a degree. 
 
 " We go, then," cried Mashumbwe, waving his 
 hand. " Fare ye well, El Khanac; Afa, fare ye well! " 
 
 But before his followers could form into marching 
 rank, several men rushed from the forest, with every 
 appearance of importance and alarm. Making 
 straight to where stood their white leaders, they be- 
 gan hurriedly to confer with the latter. 
 
 " Your discontent was needless," cried Hazon, after 
 a minute or two of such conference, turning to his 
 rebellious followers, the whole body of whom had now 
 paused to learn what tidings these had brought. 
 " Your discontent comes a day too late. Those whom 
 we spared have even now been eaten up, and their 
 village given over to the flames." 
 
 The short, sharp gasp of amazement which greeted 
 this announcement gave place to growls of renewed 
 discontent. Some rival band of slave-hunters had 
 fallen upon the village and taken that which they 
 themselves had so weakly left. Such was their first 
 thought. 
 
 " The Ba-gcatya have found them," continued 
 Hazon calmly. 
 
 If there had been marvel before in the ejaculation 
 207 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 now there was more. There was even a note of dis- 
 may. Forgetting their mutinous intentions now, all 
 crowded around their white leaders, eager to learn 
 full particulars. And in that moment Laurence, ever 
 observant, was not slow to perceive, both in the looks 
 and tones of the party, quite enough to confirm all 
 that Hazon had said as to the terror inspired by the 
 very name of the redoubtable Ba-gcatya. Even the 
 savage and truculent Wangoni seemed for the moment 
 overawed. It was striking, too, how, in the hour of 
 impending peril, all turned to the white leaders, whom 
 a moment before they had been entirely defying and 
 more than half threatening. 
 
 " The Ba-gcatya are in great force," went on 
 Hazon, as calmly as though he were merely announc- 
 ing the proximity of one more well-nigh defenceless 
 and slave-supplying village. " We shall have to fight, 
 and that hard, but not here. We must fight them in 
 the open." 
 
 A murmur of assent went up. Every head was 
 craned forward, eager to hear more. Briefly and con- 
 cisely Hazon set forth his commands. 
 
 Their then encampment was situate on the edge 
 of the forest belt. Beyond the latter the country 
 stretched away in vast, well-nigh treeless plains. Now 
 a peculiar feature of these plains was the frequent 
 recurrence of abrupt granite kopjes, at first glance not 
 unlike moorland tors. But more than one of them, 
 when arrived at, wore the aspect of a complete 
 Druidical ring a circle of stones crowning the rise, 
 with a slight depression of ground within the centre. 
 One of these Hazon, who had been over the ground 
 
 208 
 
TWO PERILS. 
 
 before, resolved should serve them as a natural for- 
 tress, whence to resist the fierce and formidable foe 
 now advancing against them. 
 
 With surprising readiness the march began. Loads 
 were shouldered and slaves yoked together extra 
 firmly. Those who were too weak to keep up the 
 pace treble that of the normal one at which they 
 were hurried forward, were ruthlessly speared; but 
 whether they were slain by their captors or by the 
 pitiless Ba-gcatya mattered but little. 
 
 The kopje which Hazon had selected was situated 
 about four miles from the forest belt. No better 
 natural fortress could have been chosen; for it con- 
 sisted of a complete circle of low rocks, of about two 
 hundred yards' diameter, and commanded an open 
 sweep of at least a mile on every side. Laurence and 
 Holmes were loud in their admiration and interest. 
 
 "These are old craters, I reckon," said Hazon; 
 " not volcanic, but mud-springs. This plain, you 
 notice, is considerably below the level of the forest 
 country. Depend upon it, the thing was once a big 
 swamp, with great boiling, bubbling mud-holes." 
 
 No time was it, however, for speculations of a 
 scientific nature; and accordingly the leaders pro- 
 ceeded to dispose their lines of defence. This was 
 soon done, for the three white men and Lutali had 
 arranged all that during the march. The Wangoni 
 were of no great use, save in pursuit of a defeated 
 enemy. They could hardly have hit a haystack once 
 in six shots, nor did Hazon care to intrust with fire- 
 arms such a turbulent and unruly crew. But the 
 slavers were all fair marksmen some indeed, among 
 
 209 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 them Lutali, being not far short of dead shots. These 
 were disposed around the circle of rocks so as to form 
 a ring of fire; and the rocks themselves were height- 
 ened wherever necessary with some of the loads, or 
 with such piles of loose stones as could be collected 
 in time. The part allotted to the Wangoni was that 
 of a reserve force, in the event of the enemy carrying 
 any given point, and thus necessitating hand-to-hand 
 conflict. The slaves, firmly secured, were placed in 
 the center of the great circle. 
 
 Hardly were these dispositions complete than a cry 
 of astonishment, of warning arose. Far away over 
 the forest country, somewhat to the right and left of 
 the route the party had been pursuing, several columns 
 of smoke could be seen mounting to the heavens. 
 There were other villages, then, besides the one 
 spared, and now the Ba-gcatya, spreading over the 
 land in their immense might, were firing all such and 
 massacring the inhabitants. Many and various were 
 the comments which arose as the party gazed intently 
 upon the distant smoke columns. 
 
 " If only as a change from knocking on the head 
 these defenceless devils, it's quite a blessed relief to 
 have some real fighting/' quoth Holmes. 
 
 " You'll get plenty of that, Holmes, within the next 
 few hours," remarked Hazon dryly. 
 
 It was near midday, and the heat was torrid and 
 sweltering. The fierce vertical sun-rays seemed to 
 pour down upon their unshaded position as in streams 
 of molten fire. Even the quick, excited murmurs of 
 the men grew languid. And, having seen to all being 
 in complete readiness, as Laurence Stanninghame sat 
 
 210 
 
TWO PERILS. 
 
 there at his post in the torrid heat, smoking the pipe 
 of meditation, did no thought of the home, such as it 
 was, but which he would probably never see again, 
 not rise up before him? If it did, it was only to con- 
 firm him in the conviction that the present position of 
 peril whose chances he, at any rate, was in no dis- 
 position to under-estimate was the preferable of the 
 two. Here freedom, activity, adventure ; there galling 
 bondage, stagnation, a ceasing to live. Yes, that time 
 indeed seemed very, very far away. He felt no 
 shadow of inclination towards a recurrence thereof. 
 
 Then, suddenly, with magical swiftness, the whole 
 party was astir, and it needed a sharp, hurried com- 
 mand or two from Hazon and Lutali to restrain some 
 from leaping on the rocks in order to obtain a better 
 view of what had caused the alarm. 
 
 Between the kopje and the forest belt the ground, 
 save for an occasional roll, was entirely visible. Now, 
 swarming out into the open, came masses of moving 
 figures fleeing figures. Hazon and Laurence, who 
 each possessed a powerful glass, were able to master 
 the situation in a twinkling. 
 
 Close on the rear of the fugitives pressed another 
 multitude, to the naked eye like myriad ants upon 
 the far plain, but to those who scanned them through 
 the powerful glasses all detail was vividly distinct 
 the lines and lines of tufted shields, the gleam of spear 
 blades, the streaming feather and cow-hair adorn- 
 ments. 
 
 And now the hum and roar of the wild onslaught 
 and pursuit grows momentarily louder, drawing 
 nearer and nearer. A great cloud of dust is whirling 
 
 211 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 onward, and athwart it the gleam of steel, rising 
 and falling, the distant death-scream, as the miserable 
 fugitives fall ripped, hacked to fragments by their 
 ferocious pursuers. And still the terrible wave 
 pours on. 
 
 " This is going to be a hard business," muttered 
 Laurence between his set teeth. " How many do you 
 size them up at, Hazon? " 
 
 " Twenty thousand, rather more than less. That's 
 just how Cetywayo's people came on at Isandhlwana, 
 only there they took us more by surprise. Well, we're 
 not a lot of soldiers here anyway to scatter all over 
 the veldt. If they take this position they'll have to 
 rush it, and rush it hard. Well, do you believe in the 
 Ba-gcatya now, Stanninghame? " 
 
 Save a nod the other makes no answer, and now 
 the attention of both men is upon the scene before 
 them. 
 
 Some few of the fugitives, in the desperation of 
 their terror, are gradually outstripping their pursuers. 
 Against these whole flights of casting spears are 
 launched, amid roaring shouts of bass laughter. 
 Finally the last one falls. 
 
 And now the array of the enemy is but half a mile 
 distant from the slaver's position. Far over the plain, 
 in immense crescent formation, the barbarian host 
 sweeps on, now in dead silence, not hesitating a 
 moment, for the spoor left by the slavers is broad and 
 easy. Now it can be seen that these warriors are of 
 splendid physique. Most of them are nearly naked 
 save for their flowing war-adornments of hair or 
 jackal-tails. Many are crowned with towering ostrich 
 
 213 
 
TWO PERILS. 
 
 plumes, both black and white; others wear balls of 
 feathers surmounted by the scarlet tuft of the egret; 
 some, again, have round their heads bands of the hide 
 of the spotted cat; but all flaunt some wild and fan- 
 tastic adornment. And the great hide shields, with 
 their party-coloured facings and tufted tops, are Zulu 
 shields, and the broad stabbing spear is the Zulu 
 wnkonto, or assegai. 
 
 There is a lurid fascination in gazing upon the awful 
 splendour of this fierce and formidable battle-rank, 
 which set even Laurence Stanninghame's schooled 
 nerves tingling. As for Holmes, he could hardly 
 remain still in his excitement. But in Hazon's pierc- 
 ing eyes there was a glow in which the lust of combat, 
 despair of success, and the most indomitable resolve 
 were about equally intermingled. The countenance 
 of Lutali betrayed no change whatever. The bulk of 
 the slave-hunters were scowling and eager; but the 
 miserable slaves, realizing that massacre awaited them, 
 were moaning and trembling with fear. Under the 
 slave-yoke they held their lives, at arty rate, but 
 should the enemy without win the day, why, then, 
 they would taste the steel in common with their pres- 
 ent oppressors. The Ba-gcatya never spared. 
 
 Now the battle-rank of the latter underwent a 
 change. From each end of the great crescent 
 " horns " shot out, extending farther and farther. 
 Still the numbers of the main body seemed in no wise 
 to diminish. The rock-crowned mound was encircled 
 by a wall of living men. 
 
 Then the silence was rent asunder, and that in most 
 appalling fashion. From twenty thousand fierce 
 
 213 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 throats in concert went up the war-shout horrible, 
 terrifying combining the frenzied roars of a legion 
 of maniacs with the snarls and baying of hounds tear- 
 ing down their prey. One there had heard it before, 
 but not in such awful, soul-curdling volume as this. 
 And then, with heads bent, shields thrust forward, 
 broad spears in strong ready grip, the whole circle of 
 the Ba-gcatya host came surging up the slope. 
 
 214 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE SIGN. 
 
 CRASH! crash! A long, detonating roar, then 
 crash! again. The rock-circle is a perfect ring of 
 flame, sheeting forth in red jets athwart the hanging 
 sulphurous smoke. Death-yells are mingling with the 
 fearful war-shout. Shields are flung high in the air, 
 and dark bodies, leaping, fall forward upon their faces, 
 to be trampled into lifelessness as their own comrades 
 tread them down, not pausing, rushing over them as 
 they lie. 
 
 "No, no! no quicker," reproves Hazon, who is 
 directing here, where the assailant's force is the strong- 
 est, namely, the main body, the isifuba or breast of the 
 impi. " Fire steadily and low, as before, but no 
 quicker." 
 
 His followers growl a ready assent. They are 
 unmitigated ruffians, but terrible and determined 
 fighters. The fanatical fatalism of the Mohammedan 
 creed renders them utterly impervious to panic. They 
 keep up a steady, quick-loading fire into the charg- 
 ing Ba-gcatya, and, aiming low, every shot tells, com- 
 mitting fearful havoc among the serried, onrushing 
 masses. Yet those terrible warriors are dauntless. 
 Whole lines go down; still, others surge over them, 
 and now the charge is but two hundred yards from 
 the line of rocks. 
 
 The fore ranks hesitate, then come to a halt, 
 215 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 crumpling back upon those behind them. The 
 slavers, with a shrill, ringing yell, seeing their oppor- 
 tunity, pour a frightfully raking volley into the 
 momentarily confused mass. Shields are clashed to- 
 gether, spears wildly waving. For the moment it 
 seems as though the Ba-gcatya were fighting with 
 each other, striving to hew their way through their 
 own ranks in their endeavours to escape beyond the 
 reach of that awful and destructive fire. 
 
 " Give it to them again ! " growls Hazon, a lurid 
 gleam in his deep-set, piercing eyes. " But, aim low 
 aim low! " 
 
 Again not a shot is thrown away. That side of 
 the savage host falls back hurriedly, leaving the 
 ground bestrewn with bodies, dead, dying, crushed. 
 A perfect storm of exultant cheers greets this move. 
 
 But if a temporary retreat, it is no rout. In 
 obedience to a rapidly-uttered, whistling signal, fully 
 one-half of the main body swings round and hurls 
 itself with incredible force and fury upon another 
 point of the rock-circle, seemingly the weakest point, 
 for here the rocks are low and apart, and have to be 
 supplemented with bags and bales. 
 
 Laurence Stanninghame is in command here. And 
 now his dark face flushes with the glow of a mad ex- 
 citement, a perfectly transforming exhilaration. He 
 would thunder his commands aloud, but that a deadly 
 coolness is as indispensable almost as accuracy of aim. 
 His orders are the same as Hazon's and uttered as 
 calmly but for a suppressed tremor and as audibly. 
 
 The very earth seems to rock and reel beneath the 
 detonating roll of the volleys, the thunderous rumble 
 
 216 
 
THE SIGN. 
 
 of charging feet. The dark, glaring faces of warring 
 demons, the flinging aloft of shields, the groaning 
 and yells, the redness of the sheeting flames, all this 
 renders him mad mad with the revel of conflict, 
 with the herculean determination which is sublime 
 above death. Here again whole lines of the enemy 
 are down. Here again those in front would draw 
 back if they could, but the immense weight behind 
 hurls them on. It is the work of but very few 
 moments. 
 
 And now the whole of the Ba-gcatya host is 
 circling around the slaver's position, every now and 
 again making a furious rush upon what seems a weak 
 point of the defences. But the defenders have a way 
 of massing upon each point thus attacked, and that 
 with a celerity which is truly marvellous, and the re- 
 sult is the same. Yet with each repulse the terrible 
 ranks leap forward immediately, and every such charge 
 brings them nearer than the last. Moreover, as each 
 of their fighting leaders is picked off, another springs 
 forward with unparalleled intrepidity to take his 
 place. The while the barking roar of their terrific 
 slogan rends the air in its most demoniacal clamour. 
 
 Now an idea takes hold on the minds of these 
 ferocious legionaries, and it is passed like lightning 
 round the ranks. Those in the forefront haul up the 
 bodies of the slain, and, holding them to them, 
 stagger forward, thinking to make a buckler of the 
 dead for the living. But the terrible rifles of the 
 slavers drive their unerring missiles at that short 
 range through dead and living alike, and corpse is 
 heaped upon corpse in ghastly intertwining. 
 
 217 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 In the thickest of the tumult Hazon is here, there, 
 everywhere directing, encouraging, restraining. But 
 for the demon-glow in the black eyes staring from 
 the pale, set face, the man might have been made of 
 marble, so little trace of emotion of any kind does he 
 display. Laurence, too, is wary and self-contained, 
 though getting in here and there a telling shot. 
 Holmes, on the other hand, is firing away as fast as 
 he can load. So far not a man has been injured. 
 The assailants are not quite within spear-throwing 
 distance yet. 
 
 " Ammunition hold out? Oh, yes, we have plenty 
 of that," is Hazon's reply to a rapid, low-toned query 
 on the part of Laurence. " But it's time they turned 
 tail. Isandhlwana was nothing to this." 
 
 But now, with a deafening, vibrating roar the Ba- 
 gcatya, massing suddenly, hurl fully one-half of their 
 force upon the point directed by Lutali. They surge 
 up the slope in one dense charge of lightning swift- 
 ness. Bullets are hailed upon them. They waver 
 not. The hands of the defenders are skinned and 
 blistered by contact with the breeches of their own 
 rifles, so hot have these become through quick firing, 
 and still the firing is not quick enough. Stumbling, 
 leaping, flying over the defences they come a great 
 cloud of dark, grim faces, and bared teeth, and pro- 
 truding eyeballs. They spring upon the defences, 
 then over them. The whole might of the redoubtable 
 foe is pouring into the natural fortress. 
 
 Now ensues a scene the like of which might be 
 paralleled, but hardly surpassed, by some lurid drama 
 of hell. In jarring shock they meet, those within and 
 
 218 
 
THE SIGN. 
 
 those, till now, without the savage legionaries of 
 " The Spider," and the no less savage and equally 
 determined slave-hunters. The Wangoni, seeing their 
 chance, have sprung forward to meet and roll back 
 the assailants. But they themselves are beaten down 
 by the broad shields, ripped with the terrible stabbing 
 spears of the ferocious Ba-gcatya, now maddened to 
 assuage their blood-thirst, and whose crushing might, 
 now pouring over in countless numbers, this handful 
 shall never hope to resist. The chief, Mashumbwe, 
 is speared and ripped. The struggle is fierce and 
 hand-to-hand, but short. The Wangoni, now a sorry 
 remnant, are rolled back upon their allies. 
 
 Of these not a man but knows that the day is lost, 
 that flight is impossible; that if the other half of the 
 Ba-gcatya host has not swarmed Dver to take them 
 on the rear, it is only because it is waiting to receive 
 on its spear points all who flee. But there is no 
 thought of flight. With all their indifference to 
 human suffering,, with all their brutality, their 
 savagery, the slavers are as brave as any. They are 
 indeed men picked for their desperate courage, and 
 now, standing back to back, they begin to render the 
 victory of the Ba-gcatya a dearly bought one indeed. 
 
 The war-shout no longer rends the air. There is a 
 grim, fell silence in this hand-to-hand conflict, broken 
 only by the snake-like hiss of the Ba-gcatya as an 
 enemy goes down, by the slap and shock of shield 
 meeting clubbed gun or stabbing knife, by the gasps 
 of the combatants. The cloud of powder smoke 
 hanging overhead partially veils the sun, which glow- 
 ers, a blood-red ball, through this gloomy shroud. 
 
 219 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 The whole space within the rock-circle is a very 
 charnel-pit of corpses, among which the combatants 
 stagger victorious Ba-gcatya and vanquished slave- 
 hunters alike stagger and slip on a foothold of oozy 
 gore ; stab, and strike, and fall in their turn. 
 
 In the rush and the melee Laurence Stanninghame 
 has become separated even farther from his com- 
 rades, his white comrades, that is, nor can he by 
 any effort hope to rejoin them. Several Arabs are 
 around him, his own followers, swarthy sons of the 
 Prophet, their keen eyes flashing hate and defiance 
 upon the foe, their long ataghans sweeping a circle of 
 light around them. In their forefront is Lutali 
 Lutali, whirling a great scimitar, hewing down more 
 than one of the too venturesome Ba-gcatya, and that 
 in spite of the broad bull-hide shield deftly wielded 
 Lutali, uttering a semi-religious war-cry, his erect 
 form and keen, haughty face the very personifica- 
 tion of absolute and dauntless valour. And he him- 
 self, wedged in by those around, ca/i still get in now 
 and again a telling shot from his revolver, and with 
 every such shot one more warrior of " The Spider " 
 has uttered his last battle cry. 
 
 No, there is no hope. Swift as lightning, a mighty 
 brain-wave surges through Laurence's mind, and in it 
 he sees the whole of- his past life. Yet not even this 
 dismays him rather does it engender a sort of half- 
 bitter exultation. Life for him has been such a mis- 
 take, and that not through any fault of his own. It 
 held no especial charm for him. All its sweetness has 
 been concentrated within one short idyllic period; 
 but even that could not have lasted even to it would 
 
 220 
 
THE SIGN. 
 
 have come disillusionment. Lilith would never learn 
 his fate. It, and that of those with him, would vanish, 
 as others had done, into the mysteries of this great 
 mysterious continent. All this and more so light- 
 ning-like is the power of thought passes through 
 Laurence Stanninghame's brain at this dread and 
 awful moment. 
 
 A casting spear strikes him on the left shoulder, 
 penetrating the flesh. Infuriated by the sharp, sicken- 
 ing pang, he discharges his revolver at the supposed 
 thrower, but his aim is uncertain. Again he draws 
 trigger. The hammer falls with a harmless click ; the 
 chambers are empty. And now, hard pressed by the 
 yelling Ba-gcatya, those of his followers yet between 
 him and the enemy stagger back, fighting furiously, 
 while the life-stream wells from many a gashed and 
 gaping wound. No longer can he see either Hazon 
 or Holmes, for the forest of waving, reeking spear 
 blades. Then one of his own followers, a hulking 
 Swahili, mortally wounded, reels and falls, and, doing 
 so, bears' back Laurence beneath his ponderous 
 weight. The rock-rampart is immediately behind 
 him, and is low here. It catches the back of his 
 knees, and now, having lost all control over his bal- 
 ance, grasping at empty air in wild effort to recover 
 himself, Laurence pitches heavily backward over the 
 rocks, and lies half stunned upon the plain without. 
 
 Those of the Ba-gcatya host in waiting on that 
 side surge tumultuously forward, uttering yells of 
 savage delight. This is the first of the doomed 
 slavers who lias come over; and he a white man, and 
 of course a leader. Each warrior is eager to bury his 
 
 221 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 spear-head in this man's body, and they crowd around 
 him, every right hand raised aloft for the downward 
 stroke. 
 
 But the fatal stroke remains undealt. Broad 
 blades quiver aloft in a ring of steel. Each grim, 
 bloodthirsty countenance is set and staring, stony in 
 its indescribable expression of mingled marvel and 
 awe, and eyeballs seem to start from their sockets as 
 their owners stand gazing down upon this prostrate 
 white man. Then from each broad chest a gasp 
 bursts forth: 
 
 " Au! The Sign! THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER!" 
 
 223 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 TO WHAT END! 
 
 "THE Sign of the Spider!" Laurence Stanning- 
 hame lying there, his faculties half dazed by the shock 
 of his fall and the pain of his wound, hearing the 
 words uttered as they were in pure Zulu almost 
 persuaded himself that the terrible events of that day 
 had been a dream. But no, it was real enough. His 
 half-unclosed eyes took in the sea of grim, dark faces 
 pressing forward to gaze upon him. " The Sign of 
 the Spider? " What did it what could it mean, that 
 it should be all-powerful to stay those devouring 
 spears, to avert from him the grisly death of blood, 
 whose bitterness even then was already past? Then, 
 as for the first time, he suffered his glance to follow 
 the direction of theirs. He saw a strange thing. 
 
 The metal box had come forth, either jerked from 
 its resting-place during his fall, or unconsciously 
 plucked thence by his own hand in the last moment 
 of his extremity, and now, still secured by the steel 
 chain, it lay upon his breast. And oh! marvel of 
 marvels! Gazing thus upon it, focussed by his half- 
 closed eyelids and confused senses the straggling 
 monogram with its quaint turns and flourishes, lying 
 brown upon the more shining metal, s t eemed to take 
 exactly the form and aspect of a great sprawling 
 tarantula. " The Sign of the Spider " hz.d been their 
 
 223 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 cry! And these were ''The People of the Spider!" 
 What magic, what mystery was this? Lilith's last 
 gift, Lilith's image; even her very name! It had 
 indeed acted as a talisman, as a '' charm " to stand 
 between him and the most deadly of peril, as her aspi- 
 ration had worded it. Verily, again had Lilith's love 
 availed to stand between himself and a swift, sure, and 
 bloody death ! A marvel, and a stupendous one. 
 
 All this flashed through his mind as the Ba-gcatya 
 crowded up around him, the hubbub of their excited 
 voices sinking into an awestruck murmur as they 
 gazed upon the man who wore " The Sign of the 
 Spider." No wonder this man should have come forth 
 alive from the ring of death, they decided, he alone, 
 wearing that sign. And he alone had come forth. 
 
 All sounds of conflict had now ceased, giving way 
 to the exultant shouts and bass laughter of the vic- 
 torious savages looting the property of the slavers. 
 Not a man was left alive up there, Laurence knew 
 only too well. He alone was spared, as the bearer of 
 that mysterious sign; was spared, miraculously in- 
 deed but to what end? 
 
 Now he became conscious of a movement among 
 the crowd, which parted quickly, respectfully. 
 Through the opening thus effected there advanced two 
 men. Both were fine, tall warriors, elderly of aspect, 
 for their short, crisp beards were turning gray, but 
 apparently in the very prime of athletic strength and 
 vigour. In outward adornment their appearance 
 differed little from that of the bulk of the Ba-gcatya. 
 Their shaven heads were surmounted by the isicoco, 
 or ring, exactly after the Zulu fashion, and on either 
 
 224 
 
TO WHAT END! 
 
 side of this, but fastened so as not to interfere with it, 
 nodded a tuft of magnificent white ostrich plumes. 
 Laurence, who had now raised himself to a sitting 
 posture, felt no doubt but that in these he beheld the 
 two principal war-chiefs of the Ba-gcatya army. 
 
 " Who art thou, stranger, who wearest the Sign of 
 the Spider? " began one of these in pure Zulu, after 
 gazing upon him for a moment in silence. 
 
 Laurence at first thought to affect ignorance of the 
 language, of which, indeed, he possessed considerable 
 knowledge. He would the more readily get at their 
 plans and intentions that way. But then it occurred 
 to him he could hardly sustain his character as one to 
 be favoured of the People of the Spider if professing 
 an ignorance of their tongue, and he intended to work 
 that fortunate incident for all it would carry. So he 
 replied courteously: 
 
 >l You see me, father. I alone am alive of those who 
 fought up yonder. Even the spear which would slay 
 me refused its work. It was turned aside," showing 
 the wound in his shoulder, of which he realized he 
 must make light, though, as a matter of fact, it was 
 giving him considerable pain. 
 
 A deep murmur from the vast and increasing audi- 
 ence convinced the speaker that he had scored a point 
 in making this statement. The chief continued: 
 
 " Rest now, while we rest, O stranger, and eat, for 
 the way is far which lies before us." 
 
 " And whither does that way lie, O brave ones 
 who command the valiant? " asked Laurence. 
 
 " Where dwelleth the Strong Wind that burns from 
 the North." And with this darkly enigmatical re- 
 
 225 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 joinder the speaker and his brother chief turned away, 
 as a sign that the conference need proceed no further 
 at present. 
 
 Some of those who had heard now beckoned Lau- 
 rence forward, and, as he moved among that terrible 
 host, many and strange were the glances which were 
 cast at him. He, for his part, was not unmoved. 
 This was an experience clean outside any he had 
 ever known. The might and stature of these for- 
 midable warriors, lingering around in immense 
 groups, many of them bleeding from ghastly wounds, 
 yet devouring the dried food they carried, the while 
 comrades were treating their hurts after a fashion 
 which would have caused the civilized being to shriek 
 aloud with agony; the ferocious volubility wherewith 
 they discussed and fought the battle over again; and 
 away beyond their lines, the earth black with corpses 
 of the slain; while up yonder, though this he could 
 not see, the rock circle was literally piled with those 
 who had been his friends or followers for many a long 
 day. All this impressed him to an extent which he 
 had hardly deemed possible, though of any outward 
 evidence thereof he gave no sign. 
 
 " Are all dead up yonder? " he asked some of the 
 Ba-gcatya, as he joined them in their frugal fare. 
 
 A laugh, derisive but not discourteous to himself, 
 greeted the question. 
 
 "An! The bite of The Spider does not need 
 repeating twice," was the reply. " None who have 
 once felt it live." 
 
 The Ba-gcatya, heavy as had been their losses, were 
 in high good-humour over their victory. After all, it 
 
 226 
 
TO WHAT END! 
 
 was a victory, and a hard-fought one. They only 
 lived for such. Losses were nothing to them. The 
 spoils of the slavers' caravan arms, ammunition, 
 goods of all sorts, were distributed for transport 
 among the younger regiments of the impi, which, its 
 allotted period of rest over, at a mandate from its 
 chiefs prepared for departure. And now the solitary 
 white man in its midst captive or guest, he himself 
 was hardly certain which had an opportunity of 
 admiring the stern and iron discipline of this splendid 
 army of savages. That of the Zulu troops under the 
 rule of Cetywayo, or even under that of Tshaka, might 
 have equalled it, but could not possibly have surpassed 
 it. Each company fell into rank with machine-like 
 precision and celerity. The dead were left as they 
 fell ; those who were too grievously wounded to move 
 received death from the swift, sure spear-stroke of a 
 comrade; then, marching in five columns, the great 
 army set forth on its return, striking a course to the 
 northward. 
 
 Laurence Stanninghame's feelings were passing 
 strange as he found himself thus carried captive, he 
 knew not whither, by this mighty nation which had 
 hitherto been to him but a name, as to whose very 
 existence he had been until quite recently more than 
 half sceptical. Hazon had not exaggerated its strength 
 or prowess; no, not one whit. Of that he had had 
 abundant testimony. And Hazon himself? That 
 strange individual, with his marked-out personality, 
 his cold-blooded ruthlessness and dauntless courage? 
 Well, his career was done. He lay in yonder circle, 
 buried beneath the slain, fighting to the last with 
 
 227 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 fierce and consistent valour. And Holmes? Even 
 Laurence's hardened nature felt soft as he thought of 
 the comrade with whom he had been so closely linked 
 during these years of lawless and perilous enterprise. 
 Well, they were gone, 1 and he was spared, but to 
 what end? 
 
 Then the spirit of the true adventurer reasserted 
 itself. What lay before him? What were the chances 
 opening out to him in the dim, unknown land whither 
 they were speeding? " You will return wealthy, or 
 you will not return at all," had been Hazon's words; 
 and now their utterer would utter no more words of 
 any kind but he, Laurence, would he return at all? 
 Would he? 
 
 And now, as they gained the edge of the great plain, 
 the whole impi raised a mighty battle-song, impro- 
 vised to celebrate their triumph. Its fierce strophes 
 rolled like thunder along the ranks to the tread of 
 marching feet, and the multitude of hide shields 
 dappled the plain far and near, and the wavy lines of 
 spear-points flashed and sparkled in the sunlight. 
 
 And already over the wizard ring of the rock circle, 
 piled with its slain, immense clouds of vultures were 
 wheeling beneath the blue vault or swooping down 
 upon their abundant feast. And the sun, flaming 
 down upon the torrid earth, seemed to shed a pitiless, 
 brassy glare upon this awful hecatomb, whose annals 
 should ever remain unrecorded, swallowed up in the 
 grim and gloomy mysteries of that region of cruelty 
 and of blood. 
 
 For many days thus they journeyed making rapid, 
 but not forced marches. The aspect of the country, 
 
 228 
 
TO WHAT END! 
 
 too, varied, open, wavy plains, where giraffe and 
 buffalo were plentiful, and were hunted in great num- 
 bers for the supply of the impi, then gloomy forest 
 tracts, which seemed to depress the Ba-gcatya, who 
 hurried through them with all possible speed. Broad 
 rivers, too, swarming with crocodiles and hippo- 
 potami, and these the warriors would dash through 
 in a mass, making the most hideous yelling and 
 splashing. But even the ground seemed gradually to 
 ascend, and certain white peaks, for some time visible 
 on the far sky line, were drawing nearer, growing 
 larger with every march. 
 
 It may seem strange how readily Laurence Stann- 
 inghame adapted himself to this new turn in the tide 
 of his affairs and indeed now and again he would 
 faintly wonder at it himself. He had fought against 
 these formidable savages in the most determined and 
 bloody hand-to-hand conflict that had ever befallen 
 his lot, or, in all probability, ever would again. They 
 had overwhelmed and massacred his comrades and 
 whole following; sparing himself alone, and that by a 
 miracle. And now not only was he subjected to no 
 ill-treatment or indignity, but moved freely among 
 them, and was even suffered to retain his arms. Yet 
 there was a sort of stand-offishness about most of 
 them, in which he thought to descry a mingling of awe 
 and repulsion. 
 
 Now and again, however, a thought would occur to 
 him, a thought productive of a cold shiver. To 
 what end was he thus spared? Was it to be sacrificed 
 in some hideous and gruesome rite? The thought 
 was not a pleasant one, and it would intrude more and 
 
 229 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 more. The hot African glow, the adventurous life, 
 replete with every phase of weird and depressing inci- 
 dent, had strangely affected this man's temperament. 
 With all his coolness in emergencies his readiness 
 of resource in times of rest he would grow moody 
 and high-strung. A sort of surcharged, mesmeric 
 property seemed to hold him at such times, and he 
 would wonder whether the hideous experiences and 
 iron self-repression which he had passed through of 
 late had not begun, unknown to himself, actually to 
 affect his brain. 
 
 Now during the heat of the midday halt, he would 
 withdraw and sit alone by the hour, contemplating 
 the metal box, and at times its contents. More and 
 more, since his wonderful escape, was it assuming in 
 his eyes the properties of an amulet, or charm. It 
 would reassure him, too, what time unpleasant 
 thoughts would weigh upon him as to the end to 
 which he had been reserved. Twice had Lilith's love 
 stood between him and death. Would it not again? 
 In truth the metal box was a possession beyond price. 
 
 All unconsciously his frequent and rapt contempla- 
 tion of this object was standing him in valuable stead. 
 The Ba-gcatya, furtively beholding him thus engaged, 
 for he was never beyond their watchful gaze, were 
 strengthened in their belief that he was a magician 
 of the Spider, and feared him the more. He was thus, 
 unconsciously, keeping up his character as such. 
 
 Yet, vivid as recollection was, as conjured up by 
 the metal box, in other respects the old life seemed 
 far away as a dream; misty, shadowy, vanishing. 
 All its old conventionalities, its abstract notions of 
 
 230 
 
TO WHAT END! 
 
 right and wrong, what were they? Dust. Even now, 
 whither was he wending? Would he ever again 
 behold a white face? It might be never. 
 
 " Have no white people ever visited your country, 
 Silawayo? " he said one day while he and the two 
 war-chiefs were talking together during the march. 
 
 " One only," was the reply, given with a shade of 
 hesitation. 
 
 " And what became of him? " 
 
 " Au! He went to Well, he went " an- 
 swered the chief, with a curious look. 
 
 The reply smote upon Laurence with a cold fear. 
 What grim and gruesome form of mysterious doom 
 did it not point to? " One only," Silawayo had said. 
 He himself was the second. It seemed ominous. 
 But it would never do to manifest curiosity, let alone 
 apprehension, on his own account, so he forebore fur- 
 ther query as to the mystery, whatever it might be. 
 Yet he thought it no harm to say: 
 
 " And what was this white man, Silawayo? " 
 
 " He was Umfundisi " (a preacher), answered the 
 other chief, Ngumunye. " The king loves not such." 
 
 Well, the king need have no objections to himself 
 on that score, at any rate, thought Laurence, with a 
 dash of grim humour. But he only said: 
 
 " The king? Tell me about your king, Izinduna. 
 How does he look? What is his name? " 
 
 "Haul Is it possible, O stranger, that you have 
 never heard the name of the king? " said Ngumunye, 
 turning upon Laurence a blankly astonished face. 
 
 " Did not Silawayo but now say that only one white 
 man had visited your country and even he had not 
 
 231 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 returned?" said Laurence, in native fashion answer- 
 ing one query with another. 
 
 " Ha! " cried both chiefs, whom an idea seemed to 
 strike. Then Ngumunye went on impressively: 
 
 " Look around, O bearer of the Sign of the Spider. 
 For days we have seen no man, the remains of huts 
 have we seen, but of people none. You too were 
 remarking upon it but yesterday." 
 
 ;< That is so," assented Laurence. 
 
 " The remains of huts, but of people none," repeated 
 the induna, with a wave of his hand. " Well, stranger, 
 that is the name of the king, the Great Great One." 
 
 " The name of the king? " 
 
 "ITyisandhlu!" 
 
 " ITyisandhlu? The Strong Wind that burns from 
 the North? " repeated Laurence, translating the name. 
 
 " E-he! " assented the chiefs emphatically. " Now 
 say, hath not a broad belt around the land of the 
 People of the Spider been burned flat?" with a wave 
 of the hand which took in the desolated region. 
 
 They had gained the great mountain range whose 
 snowy summits had been drawing nearer for days, 
 and a noble range indeed it was apparently, more- 
 over, of immense altitude. Laurence Stanninghame, 
 who was well acquainted with the Alps, now gazed in 
 wonder and admiration upon these snow-capped 
 Titans whose white heads seemed to support the blue 
 vault of heaven itself, to such dizzy heights did they 
 soar. Walls of black cliff, overhung with cornices 
 even as with gigantic white eyebrows, towered up 
 from dazzling snow slope, and higher still riven crags, 
 split into all fantastic shapes, frowned forth as though 
 
 232 
 
TO WHAT END! 
 
 to menace the world. And all around, clinging about 
 the feet of these stupendous heights, soft, luxuriant 
 forests, tuneful with the murmur of innumerable 
 glacier streams. A very Paradise of beauty and 
 grandeur side by side, thought Laurence amid which 
 the shields and spears, the marching column of the 
 savage host seemed strangely out of keeping. 
 
 " How are they called, those mountains, Sila- 
 wayo? " he said. 
 
 " Beyond them lies the land of the People of the 
 Spider," answered the induna evasively. And the 
 other understood that he must not look for exuber- 
 ant information on topographical subjects just then. 
 
 They entered the mountains by a deep, black defile 
 which pierced the range. For a day and night they 
 wound through this, hardly pausing to rest, for it had 
 become piercingly cold. Moreover, as Silawayo ex- 
 plained, even when the weather was at its highest 
 stage of sultriness elsewhere, in the mountains the 
 changes were sudden and great. To be snowed up 
 in this pass was too serious a matter to risk. 
 
 " Was it the only gate by which the country of the 
 Ba-gcatya was entered, then?" 
 
 But Silawayo did not seem to hear this question. 
 He descanted learnedly on the suddenness of the 
 mountain storms, and told tales of more than one 
 impi which had set forth in all its warlike ardour, and 
 had found here a stiff and frozen bed whereon its 
 people might rest for all time. 
 
 The while keenly alert to take in all the features 
 of the route, Laurence affected the greatest interest 
 in the conversation of those around him. But there 
 
 233 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 was that about the dark ruggedness of this stupendous 
 pass that weighed heavily upon his mind that de- 
 pressed, well-nigh appalled him. It was as though 
 he were passing through some black and gloomy 
 gate which should shut him forever from the outside 
 world, as they wound their way now where the cliffs 
 beetled overhead so as to shut out the heavens, now 
 along some dizzy ledge, with the dull roar of the 
 mountain stream wafted up on icy gusts from far be- 
 low. He suffered severely from the cold too, he who 
 had breathed the moist, torrid heat of equatorial 
 forests for so long, and his wound became congealed 
 and stiff. Yet he bore himself heroically, even as the 
 Ba-gcatya themselves, who, their scanty clothing 
 notwithstanding, seemed to feel the cold not one 
 whit, chatting and laughing and singing while they 
 marched. Finally the ground descended once more, 
 and at length while he was nodding in slumber at 
 the dawn of day, during one of their brief rests 
 Ngumunye touched him on the shoulder and beck- 
 oned that he should accompany him. Laurence com- 
 plied, and when they had gained the brow of a gently 
 rising ridge beyond, an exclamation of wonder and 
 admiration burst from his lips. 
 
 " Lo ! " said the induna, pointing down with his 
 knob-stick. " Lo! there lies the land of the People 
 of the Spider; there rests the throne of the Strong 
 Wind that burns from the North. Lo! his dwelling, 
 Imvungayo." 
 
 234 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE NORTH. 
 
 FROM where they stood the ground fell away in 
 great wooded spurs to a broad level valley, or rather 
 plain, shut in on the farther side by rolling ranges 
 of forest-clad hills. The valley bottom, green and 
 undulating, was watered by numerous streams, flash- 
 ing like bands of silver ribbon in the golden glow of 
 the newly risen sun. Clustering here and there, five 
 or six together, were kraals, circular and symmetrical, 
 built on the Zulu plan, and from their dome-shaped 
 grass huts blue lines of smoke were arising upon the 
 still morning air. Already, dappling the sward, the 
 many coloured hides of innumerable cattle could be 
 seen moving, and the long drawn shout and whistle 
 of these who tended them rose in faint and harmoni- 
 ous echo to the height whence they looked down. 
 Patches of broad, flag-like maize, too, stood out, in 
 darker squares, from the verdancy of the grass, and 
 bird voices in glad note made merry among the cool, 
 leafy, forest slopes. Coming in contrast to the 
 steamy heat, the dank and gloomy equatorial vegeta- 
 tion, the foul and noisome surroundings of the canni- 
 bal villages, this smiling land of plenty did indeed 
 offer to him who now first beheld it a fair and blithe- 
 some sight. 
 
 235 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 But another object attracted and held the attention 
 of the spectator even more than all. This was an 
 immense kraal. It lay on the slope at least ten miles 
 away, but with the aid of his glass, which had been 
 returned to him from among the slavers' loot, Lau- 
 rence could bring it very near indeed. The yellow- 
 domed huts lay six or seven deep between their dark, 
 ringed fences, the great circular space in the middle 
 the isigodhlo, or inclosure of royal dwellings par- 
 titioned off at the upper end why, the place might 
 have been the chief kraal of Cetywayo or Dingane 
 miraculously transferred to this remote and unex- 
 plored region. 
 
 " Lo ! Imvungayo. The seat of the Great Great 
 One the Strong Wind that burns from the North," 
 murmured Ngumunye, interpreting his glance of in- 
 quiry. " Come let us go down." 
 
 As the great impi, which up till now had been 
 marching " at ease," emerged upon the plain, once 
 more the warriors formed into rank, and advanced in 
 serried columns singing a war-song. Immediately 
 the whole land was as a disturbed beehive. Men, 
 women, and children flocked forth to welcome them, 
 the latter especially, pressing forward with eager 
 curiosity to obtain a glimpse of the white man, the 
 first of the species they had ever seen, and the air 
 rang with the shrill, excited cries of astonishment 
 wherewith they greeted his appearance, and the calm, 
 unruffled way in which he ignored both their presence 
 and amazement. Much singing followed; the stay-at- 
 homes answering the war-song of the warriors in re- 
 
 236 
 
"THE STRONG WIND THAT BURNS." 
 
 sponsive strophes but there was little variety in 
 these, which consisted largely, as it seemed to Lau- 
 rence, of exuberant references to " The Spider " and 
 praise of the king. 
 
 As they drew near the great kraal, two companies 
 of girls, arrayed in beaded dancing dresses, advanced, 
 waving green boughs, and, halting in front of the re- 
 turning impi t sang a song of welcome. Their voices 
 were melodious and pleasing to the last degree, im- 
 parting a singular charm to the somewhat monoto- 
 nous repetition of the wild chant now in a soft 
 musical contralto, now shrilling aloft in a note of 
 pealing gladness. Laurence, who was beginning to 
 feel vividly interested in this strange race of valiant 
 fighters, failed not to note that many of these girls 
 were of extraordinarily prepossessing appearance, with 
 their tall, beautiful figures and supple limbs, their 
 clear eyes and white teeth, and bright, pleasing faces. 
 Then suddenly song and dance alike ceased, and the 
 women, parting into two companies, the whole impi 
 moved forward again, marching between them. 
 
 The huge kraal was very near now, the palisade 
 lined with the faces of eager spectators. But Lau- 
 rence, quick to take in impressions, noticed that here 
 there were no severed heads stuck about in ghastly 
 ornament. This splendid race, as pitiless and un- 
 sparing in victory as it was intrepid in the field, was 
 clearly above the more monstrous and revolting 
 forms of savage barbarity. Then all further reflec- 
 tions were diverted into an entirely new channel, for 
 the whole impi tossing the unarmed right hand aloft 
 
 23? 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 thundered aloud the salute royal, then fell prostrate: 
 
 " Bayete! " 
 
 The roar sudden, and as one man of that multi- 
 tude of voices was startling, well-nigh terrifying. 
 Laurence, unprepared for any such move, found him- 
 self standing there he alone, erect while around 
 him, as so much mown corn, lay prostrate on their 
 faces this immense company of armed warriors. Then 
 he took in the reason. 
 
 Just in front of where the impi had halted rose a 
 small cluster of trees crowning a knoll. Beneath the 
 shade thus formed was a group of men, in a half- 
 squatting, half-crouching attitude all save one. 
 
 Yes. One alone was standing standing a little in 
 advance of the group standing tall, erect, majestic 
 in a splendid attitude of ease and dignity, as, with 
 head thrown slightly back, he darted his clear expres- 
 sive eyes proudly over the bending host. A man in 
 the prime of life a perfect embodiment of symmetry 
 and strength he wore no attempt at gew-gaws or 
 meretricious adornment. His shaven head was 
 crowned with the usual isicoco, or ring, whose jetty 
 blackness seemed to render the rich copper hue of the 
 smooth skin even lighter, and for all clothing he wore 
 a mutya of lion-skin and leopards' tails. Yet Lau- 
 rence Stanninghame, gazing upon him, recognized a 
 natural dignity nay, a majesty enthroning this 
 nearly naked savage such as he had never seen quite 
 equalled in the aspect or deportment of any other liv- 
 ing man. Clearly this was the king Tyisandhlu 
 "The Strong Wind that burns from the North." 
 Removing his hat with one hand he raised the other 
 
 238 
 
-THE STRONG WIND THAT BURNS." 
 
 above his head, and repeated the salute royal as he 
 had heard it from the warriors. 
 
 The king acknowledged his greeting by a brief 
 murmur. Then he called aloud: 
 
 " Rise up, my children." 
 
 As one man that huge assembly sprang to its feet, 
 and the quivering rattle of spear-hafts was as a 
 winter gale rushing through a leafless wood ; with one 
 voice it began to thunder forth the royal titles. 
 
 "O Great Spider! Terrible Spider! Blood- 
 drinking Spider, whose bite is death! O Serpent! 
 O Elephant! Thunderer of the heavens! Divider of 
 the Sun! House Burner! O Destroyer! O All 
 Devouring Beast! " These were some of the titles 
 used but the praisers would always bring back the 
 bonga to some attribute of the spider. Laurence, who 
 understood the system, noted this peculiarity, differ- 
 ing, as it did, from the Zulu practice of making the 
 serpent the principal term of praise. Finally, as by 
 signal, the shouting ceased, and the principal leaders 
 of the impi, disarming, crept forward, two by two, to 
 the king's feet. 
 
 Laurence was too far off to hear what was said, for 
 the tone was low, but he judged, and rightly, that the 
 chiefs were giving an account of the expedition. At 
 length the king dismissed them, and pointing with the 
 short knob-stick he held in his hand, ordered that he 
 himself should be brought forward. 
 
 The ranks of the warriors opened to let him 
 through, and as, having been careful to disarm in turn, 
 he advanced, Laurence could not repress a tightening 
 thrill of the pulses as he wondered what fate it was, 
 
 239 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 as regarded himself, that should now fall from the lips 
 of this despot, whose very name meant a terror and 
 a scourge. 
 
 Tyisandhlu for some moments uttered no word, 
 but stood gazing fixedly upon his prisoner in con- 
 templative silence. Laurence, for his part, was study- 
 ing, no less attentively, the king. The finely shaped 
 head and lofty brow the clear eyes and oval face, 
 culminating in a short beard, whose jetty thickness 
 just began to show here and there a streak of gray, 
 the noble stature and erect carriage, impressed him 
 even more, thus face to face, than at a distance. 
 
 " They say thou bearest the Sign of this nation, 
 O stranger," began the king, speaking in the Zulu 
 tongue, " and that to this thou owest thy life." 
 
 " That is true, Great Great One," answered Lau- 
 rence. 
 
 "But how know we that the Sign is genuine?" 
 continued Tyisandhlu. 
 
 " By this, Father of the People of the Spider. Not 
 once has it stood between me and death, but twice, 
 and that at the hands of your people." 
 
 A murmur of astonishment escaped his hearers. 
 But the king said: 
 
 " When was this other time? for such would, in 
 truth, be something of a test." 
 
 Then Laurence told the tale of his conflict with 
 the Ba-gcatya warriors beneath the tree-fern by the 
 lagoon and the murmur among the listeners 
 deepened. 
 
 " I was but one man, and they were twelve," he 
 concluded. " Twelve of the finest warriors in the 
 
 240 
 
"THE STRONG WIND THAT BURNS." 
 
 world, even the warriors of the People of the Spider. 
 Yet they could not harm me, see you, Great Great 
 One. They could not prevail against the man who 
 held who wore the Sign of the Spider." 
 
 Now an emphatic hum arose on the part of all who 
 heard and indeed there had been a silence that might 
 be felt while he had been narrating his tale. More 
 than ever was Laurence convinced that in deciding 
 to tell it he had acted with sound judgment. He had 
 little or nothing to fear from the vengeance of the rela- 
 tives of those he had slain for he had seen enough of 
 these people to guess that they did not bear a grudge 
 over the fortunes of war over losses sustained in 
 fair and open fight. And, on the other hand, he had 
 immensely strengthened his own case. 
 
 " Yet, you made common cause with these foul and 
 noisome Izimu"* said the king, shifting somewhat 
 his ground. " These carrion dogs, who devour one 
 another, even their own flesh and blood? " 
 
 " I but spared one of their villages, O Great North 
 Wind. For the rest, how many have I left stand- 
 ing?" 
 
 ;< That is so," said Tyisandhlu, still gazing fixedly 
 at his prisoner. Then he signed the latter to retire 
 among the warriors, and, turning, gave a few rapid 
 directions in a low voice to an attendant. 
 
 In the result, a group of armed warriors was seen 
 hurrying forward, and in its midst a man, unarmed 
 a man ragged and covered with dried blood, and with 
 his arms ignominiously bound behind him. And 
 wild amazement was in store for Laurence. He had 
 
 * Cannibals. 
 241 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 reckoned himself the sole survivor of the massacre. 
 Yet now in this helpless and ill-treated prisoner he 
 recognized no less a personage than Lutali. 
 
 His body and limbs slashed with many spear- 
 wounds his clothing cut to ribbons his half-starved 
 and filthy aspect as he was hustled forward into the 
 king's presence, the Arab would have looked a pitiable 
 object enough but for one thing. The dignity be- 
 gotten of high descent and indomitable courage never 
 left him not for one moment. Weak as he was with 
 loss of blood and the pain of his untended and morti- 
 fying wounds the glance of his eyes, no less than the 
 set of his keen, hawk-like face, was as proud, as fear- 
 less, as that of the king himself. 
 
 " Down, dog! " growled the guards, flinging him 
 forward on his face. " Lick the earth at the feet of 
 the Great North Wind, whose blast kills ! " 
 
 But immediately Lutali staggered to his feet, and 
 the hell blast of hate and fury which shone from his 
 eyes was perfectly demoniacal. 
 
 " There is but one God, and Mohammed is the 
 prophet of God ! " he roared. " Am I to prostrate 
 myself before an infidel dog the chief dog of a pack 
 of dogs? This for the scum!" And he spat full 
 towards Tyisandhlu. 
 
 An indescribable shiver of awe ran through the 
 dense and serried ranks of armed warriors, followed 
 by a terrible tumult. 
 
 " Au! he is mad!" cried some; while others 
 clamoured, " Give him to us, Great Great One. We 
 will put him to the fiery death! " 
 
 But the king returned no word. It is even possible 
 242 
 
"THE STRONG WIND THAT BURNS." 
 
 that his own intrepid soul was moved to admiration 
 by the sublime courage of this man his prisoner, 
 bound, helpless, weakened standing thus before him 
 before him at whose frown men trembled face to 
 face, and thus defying him. One other who beheld 
 it, the sight must have powerfully moved, for with 
 a lull in the tumult a voice rose clear and dis- 
 tinct: 
 
 " Spare him, O Great Great One, for he is a brave 
 man." 
 
 If anyone had told Laurence Stanninghame but an 
 hour earlier that he was about to commit so rash and 
 suicidal an act as to beg the life of another at the hands 
 of a grossly insulted despot, and in the face of an 
 enraged nation, he would have scouted the idea as 
 too weakly idiotic for words. Yet, in fact, he had 
 just committed that very act. Deep and savage were 
 the resentful growls that greeted his words. "Au! 
 he presumes! He shares in the insult offered to the 
 majesty of the king," were some of the ominous mut- 
 terings that went forth. 
 
 The king merely glanced in the direction of the 
 speaker, and said nothing. But Lutali, becoming 
 aware for the first time of the presence of his former 
 confederate, turned towards the latter. 
 
 " Ask not my life at the hands of these dogs, these 
 unclean swine, Afa," he cried ; " lo, Paradise awaits 
 to receive the believer. I hasten to it; I enter it;" 
 and he threw back his head fearlessly, while his eyes 
 shone with a fanatical glare. 
 
 " Spare him, O king, for he is a brave man," urged 
 Laurence again. 
 
 243 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 " And so art thou, I think," replied Tyisandhlu, 
 turning a somewhat haughty stare upon the speaker. 
 Then he muttered, " Yet not this one." 
 
 An interruption occurred; gruesome, grotesque. A 
 number of figures, seeming to spring from no one 
 knew where, were seen gliding forward. They were 
 coal black from head to foot, and their faces were 
 more like masks than the human countenance, being 
 bedaubed with some pigment that gave each of them 
 the aspect of possessing two huge goggle eyes. But 
 these horrible beings seemed at first sight to have no 
 arms and no legs, their whole anatomy being encased 
 in a sort of black, hairy sacking, whence tails and 
 streamers, also hairy, flapped in the air as they moved. 
 Hideous, indeed, they looked, hideous and gro- 
 tesque, half reptile, half devil. 
 
 They surrounded Lutali all in dead silence, the 
 guards precipitately falling back to give them way. 
 Then the king spoke, and his words were gentle and 
 mocking: 
 
 " Go now to thy Paradise, O believer; these will 
 show thee the way. Hamba-gahle!" 
 
 He waved his hand, and. in obedience to the 
 signal, the whole group of black horrors fastened upon 
 the Arab and dragged him away. And from all who 
 beheld there went up a deep, chest note of exclama- 
 tion that was part satisfaction, part awe. 
 
 The king, having received further reports and 
 attended to other business connected with the army, 
 withdrew. Laurence, watching the stately person- 
 ality of this splendid savage retiring amid the groups 
 of indunas towards the gate of the great kraal, felt his 
 
 244 
 
"THE STRONG WIND THAT BURNS." 
 
 ever-present conjectures as to his own fate merge in 
 a vivid sense of interest. But Tyisandhlu seemed to 
 have forgotten his existence, for he bestowed no 
 further word upon him ; however, he was taken charge 
 of by Ngumunye, who assigned him a large hut 
 within the roval kraal. 
 
 245 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE SHADOW OF THE MYSTERY. 
 
 THE next few days were spent by the Ba-gcatya in 
 dancing and ceremonial and by Laurence Stanning- 
 hame in trying to find out all he could about the 
 Ba-gcatya. He laid himself out to make friends 
 with them, and this was easy, for the natural 
 suspiciousness wherewith the savage invariably re- 
 gards a new acquaintance, once fairly laid to rest, the 
 Ba-gcatya proved as chatty and genial a race of people 
 as those of the original Zulu stock. But on one point 
 the lips of old and young alike were sealed, and that 
 was the fate of Lutali. No word would they ever by 
 any chance let fall as to this; but the awed silence 
 wherewith they would treat all mention of it, and their 
 hurried efforts to change the subject, added not a 
 little to the impression the last glimpse of his Arab 
 confederate had made upon Laurence. What awe- 
 some, devilish mystery did not those hideous beings 
 represent? 
 
 For the rest, he learned that these people were of 
 Zulu stock, and having opposed the accession of 
 Tshaka, when that potentate usurped the royal seat 
 of Dingiswayo, had deemed it advisable to flee. 
 They had migrated northward, even as Umzilikazi 
 and his followers had done, though some, years prior 
 
 246 
 
THE SHADOW OF THE MYSTERY. 
 
 to the flight of that chieftain. But they were nothing 
 if not conservative, and so intent was the king on 
 preserving the pure Zulu blood, that he was chary of 
 allowing any slaves among them. As it was, the issue 
 of all slaves had no rights, and could under no cir- 
 cumstances whatever rise above the condition of 
 slavery. And Laurence, noting the grand physique, 
 and even the handsome appearance, of the sons and 
 daughters of this splendid race, had no doubt as to 
 the wisdom of such a restriction. 
 
 Now, as the days went by, there began to grow 
 upon Laurence a sort of restfulness. The terrible 
 conflict and merciless massacre of his friends and fol- 
 lowers had impressed him but momentarily, accus- 
 tomed as he was to scenes of horror and of blood and 
 indeed in direct contrast to such did he the more 
 readily welcome the peaceful tranquillity of his present 
 life. For the dreaded Ba-gcatya at home were a 
 quiet and pastoral race owning extensive herds of 
 cattle also goats and a strange kind of large-tailed 
 sheep though, true to their origin, horned cattle 
 formed the staple of their possessions, and the land 
 around the king's great palace was dappled with graz- 
 ing stock, and the air was musical with the singing of 
 women hoeing the millet and maize gardens. 
 
 Then again, the surrounding country swarmed with 
 game, large and small, from the colossal elephant to 
 the tiny dinkerbuck. To Laurence, passionately 
 fond of sport, this alone was sufficient to reconcile him 
 to his strange captivity for a time. He would be the 
 life and soul of the Ba-gcatya hunting parties, and 
 skill and success, together with his untiring energy 
 
 247 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 and philosophical acceptance of the hardships and 
 vicissitudes of the chase, went straight to the hearts 
 of these fine, fearless barbarians. He became quite a 
 favourite with the nation. 
 
 The female side of the latter, too, looked upon him 
 with kindly eyes. He would chaff the girls, when he 
 came upon them wandering in bevies, as was their 
 wont, and tell them strange stories of other condi- 
 tions of life, until they fairly screamed with laughter, 
 or brought their hands to their mouths in mute 
 wonder. 
 
 " Whau, Nyonyoba, why do you not lobola for 
 some of these? " said Silawayo one day, coming upon 
 him thus engaged. " Then you could dwell among 
 us as one of ourselves." 
 
 " One might do worse, induna of the king," he 
 returned tranquilly, with a glance at the group of 
 bright-faced, merry, and extremely well-shaped dam- 
 sels, whom he had been convulsing with laughter. 
 
 " You! Listen to our father," they cried. " He is 
 joking, indeed. Yau! Farewell, Nyonyoba. Fare 
 thee well." And they sped away, still screaming with 
 laughter. 
 
 The old induna looked quizzically after them, then 
 at Laurence. Then he took snuff. 
 
 " One might do worse, Silawayo," repeated Lau- 
 rence. " I have known worse times than those I have 
 already undergone here. But all I possess I have 
 lost. My slaves your people have killed, and my ivory 
 and goods the king has taken, leaving me nothing 
 but my arms and ammunition. Tell me, then, do the 
 Ba-gcatya give their daughters for nothing, or how 
 
 248 
 
THE SHADOW OF THE MYSTERY. ' 
 
 shall a man who is so poor think to set up a kraal 
 of his own? " 
 
 The induna laughed dryly. 
 
 " We are all poor that way, for all we own belongs 
 to the king. Yet the Great Great One is open handed. 
 He might return some of your goods, Nyonyoba." 
 
 This, by the way, was Laurence's sobriquet among 
 these people, bestowed upon him by reason of his skill 
 and craft in stalking wild game. 
 
 It was even as he had said. This raid had gone 
 far towards undoing the results of their lawless and 
 perilous enterprise a portion of his gains were safe, 
 but this last blow was of crippling force. And only 
 a day or so prior to it he had been revelling in the 
 prospect of a speedy return to civilized life, to the 
 enjoyment of wealth for the remainder of his allotted 
 span. He recalled the misgivings uttered by Holmes, 
 that wealth thus gained would bring them no good, 
 for the curse of blood that lay upon it. Poor Holmes ! 
 The prophecy seemed to have come true as re- 
 garded the prophet but for himself? well, the loss 
 reconciled him still more to his life among the 
 Ba-gcatya. 
 
 Of Tyisandhlu he had seen but little. Now and 
 then the king would send for him and talk for a time 
 upon things in general, and all the while Laurence 
 would feel that the shrewd, keen eyes of this barbarian 
 ruler were reading him like a book. Tyisandhlu, 
 moreover, had expressed a wish that a body of picked 
 men should be armed with the rifles taken from the 
 slavers, and instructed in their use; and to this Lau- 
 rence had readily consented. 
 
 249 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 "Yet consider, Ndabezita," * he had said, "is it 
 well to teach them reliance on any weapon rather than 
 the broad spear? For had your army possessed fire- 
 weapons, never would it have eaten up our camp out 
 yonder. It would have spent all its time and energy 
 shooting, and that to little purpose. It would have 
 had time to think, and then the warriors would 
 have brought but half a heart to the last fierce 
 charge, 
 
 " There is much in what you say, Nyonyoba," 
 replied the king; "yet, I would try the experiment." 
 
 So the indunas were required to select the men, 
 and about three hundred were organized, and Lau- 
 rence, having spent much care in their instruction, 
 soon turned out a very fair corps of sharp-shooters. 
 No scruple had he in thus increasing the fighting 
 strength of this already fierce and formidable fighting 
 race, to which he had taken a great liking. He even 
 began to contemplate the contingency of ending his 
 life among them, for of any return to civilization there 
 seemed not the remotest prospect; and, indeed, rather 
 than return without the wealth for which he had risked 
 so much, he preferred not to return at all. 
 
 Even the memory of Lilith brought with it pain 
 rather than solace. After all this time years indeed, 
 now would not his memory have faded? The life 
 he had led tended to foster such memory in himself, 
 but with her it was otherwise. All the conditions of 
 her daily life tended rather to dim it. That sweet, 
 short, passionate episode had been all entrancing while 
 
 * A term of deference frequently used in addressing one of the 
 royal family. 
 
 250 
 
THE SHADOW OF THE MYSTERY. 
 
 it lasted ; yet was it not counterpoised by the certainty 
 that with women of her temperament such episodes 
 are but episodes? All the bitter side of his philosophy 
 cried aloud in the affirmative. 
 
 He had now been several months among the Ba- 
 gcatya; and had long since ceased to feel any misgiv- 
 ing as to his personal safety at their hands. But his 
 sense of security was destined to receive a rude shock, 
 and it came about in this way. 
 
 Returning one day from a hunt, at some distance 
 from Imvungayo, he had marched on ahead of his 
 companions, and, the afternoon being hot, had lain 
 down in the shade of a cluster of trees for a brief nap. 
 From this the buzz of muttering voices awakened 
 him. 
 
 At first he paid no attention, reckoning that the 
 remainder of the party had come up. But soon a 
 remark which was let fall started him very wide 
 awake indeed, and at the same time he recognized that 
 the voices were not those of his present companions, 
 but of strangers. From a certain quaver or hesi- 
 tancy in the tones, he judged them to be the voices of 
 old men. 
 
 " Whau! The spider must be growing hungry 
 again. It is long since he has drunk blood." 
 
 " Not since the son of Tondusa assumed the head- 
 ring/' answered the other. 
 
 " And now a greater is about to assume the head- 
 ring," went on the first speaker, " even Ncute, the son 
 of Nondwana." 
 
 "The brother of the Great Great One?" 
 
 " The same," asserted the first speaker, in that 
 251 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 sing-song hum in which natives, when among them- 
 selves, will carry on a conversation for hours. 
 
 Now the listener was interested indeed. On the 
 mysterious subject of " The Spider " the Ba-gcatya 
 had been close as death. No hint or indication tend- 
 ing to throw light upon it would they let fall in reply 
 to any question, direct or indirect. Now he was 
 going to hear something. These men, unaware of 
 his presence, and talking freely among themselves, 
 would certainly afford more than a clew to it. 
 Nondwana, the king's brother, he suspected of being 
 not over favourably disposed towards himself, possibly 
 through jealousy. 
 
 "That will be when the second moon is at full?" 
 continued one of the talkers. 
 
 " It will. Ha! The Spider will receive a brave 
 offering. Yet how shall it devour one who bears its 
 Sign?" 
 
 " It may not," rejoined the other. " Haul that will 
 in truth be a test if the sign is real." 
 
 One who bears its Sign! The listener felt every 
 drop of blood within him turn cold, freeze from head 
 to foot. What sort of devil-god could it be from 
 which this nation derived its name, and which these 
 were talking about as one that devoured men? 
 
 He that bears its Sign! The words could apply to 
 none other than himself. He had deduced that, 
 although the Ba-gcatya held cannibalism in abhor- 
 rence, yet from time to time human sacrifices of very 
 awesome and mysterious nature took place, and that 
 on certain momentous occasions the accession or 
 death of a king, of an heir to any branch of the 
 
 252 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 royal house, or such a one as this now under discus- 
 sion the admission to full privileges of manhood of 
 a scion of the same. And the sacrifice on this occasion 
 was to consist of himself? To this end he had been 
 spared even honoured. 
 
 " It will in truth be a test, for some doubt that the 
 Sign as worn by this stranger hath any magic at all," 
 continued one of the talkers. " If he comes out un- 
 harmed haul that will be a marvel, indeed a 
 marvel, indeed." 
 
 "E-he!" they assented. Then they fell to talk- 
 ing of other things, and soon the concealed listener 
 heard them rise up and depart. 
 
 Laurence decided to wait no more for his com- 
 panions. He wanted to be alone and think this 
 matter out. So when the voices of the talkers had 
 fairly faded beyond earshot he left the cluster of trees 
 on the farther side and took his way down the 
 mountain slope. 
 
 A ghastly fear was upon him. The horror and 
 mystery of the thing got upon even his iron nerves 
 the suddenness of it too, just when he had lulled him- 
 self into a complete sense of security. Had he learned 
 in like fashion that he was to be slain in an ordinary 
 way at a given time it would not have shaken him 
 beyond the ordinary. But this thing there was 
 something so devilish about it. What did it mean? 
 Was it some grotesque idol worked by mechanism, 
 even as in the old pagan temples to which human 
 sacrifices were offered? Or for he could not can- 
 didly discredit all the wierd and marvellous tales and 
 traditions of some of these up-country tribes, de- 
 ass 
 
THE SHADOW OF THE MYSTERY. 
 
 graded and man-eating as they were was it some 
 unknown and terrifying monster inhabiting the dens 
 and caves of the earth? Whatever it was, he knew 
 too well, of course, that the coincidence which had so 
 miraculously resulted in the sparing of his life at the 
 hands of the victorious Ba-gcatya, reeking with 
 slaughter, would stand him in nowhere here. He re- 
 membered the mystery hanging over the fate of 
 Lutali, and those horrible beings who had hauled the 
 Arab to his doom, whatever it was, who indeed might 
 well constitute the priesthood of the unknown devil- 
 god. 
 
 Surely never indeed had earth presented a fairer 
 scene than this upon which the adventurer's eyes 
 rested, as he made his way down the mountain-side. 
 The calm, peaceful beauty of the day, the golden 
 sunlight flooding the plain beneath, the great circle 
 of Imvungayo, and the by contrast tiny circles of 
 lesser kraals scattered about the valley or crown- 
 ing some mountain spur, and, mellow upon the 
 stillness, the distant low of cattle the singing of 
 women at work mingling with the soft voices of a 
 multitude of doves in cornlands and the surrounding 
 forest-trees. Yet now in the white peaks towering 
 to the cloudless heavens, in the black and craggy 
 rifts, in the wide, rolling, partially-wooded plains 
 the hunter's paradise this man saw only a gloomy 
 wizard circle, inclosing some horrible inferno, the 
 throne of the frightful demon-god of this extraor- 
 dinary race. 
 
 Then it occurred to Laurence that he had better 
 not let this thing get too much upon his nerves. It 
 
 254 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 was the result of inaction, he told himself. Several 
 months of rest and tranquillity had begun to turn him 
 soft. That would not do. He had got to look mat- 
 ters in the face fairly and squarely. The ceremony 
 which was to bring him to what would almost certainly 
 be a fearful fate was set for the fall of the second moon, 
 the talkers had said but of this he had been already 
 aware, for the chief Nondwana and his son were both 
 well known to him. That would give him a little over 
 six weeks. Escape? Nothing short of a miracle 
 could effect that, he told himself, remembering the 
 immense tract of desolate country surrounding the 
 fastnesses of the Ba-gcatya, and the ferocious canni- 
 bal hordes which lay beyond these, and who indeed 
 would wreak a vengence of the most barbarous kind 
 upon their old enemy and scourge, the slaver-chief, 
 did they find him alone, and to that extent no longer 
 formidable, in their midst. 
 
 The friendship of the king? No. That was based 
 on superstition, even as the friendship of the entire 
 nation. Even it was assumed for an end. Again, 
 should he boldly challenge the pretensions of the 
 demon-god, whatever it might be, and asserting him- 
 self to be the real one, offer to slay the horror in open 
 conflict? Not a moment's reflection was needed, 
 however, to convince him of the utter impracticability 
 of this scheme. The cherished superstition of a great 
 nation was not to be uprooted in any such rough-and- 
 ready fashion. The only way of escape left open to 
 him was that of death death swift and sudden the 
 death of the suicide to escape the greater horror. 
 But from this he shrank. The grim hardness of his 
 
 255 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 recent training had nerved him rather to face peril 
 than to avoid it. He did not care to contemplate such 
 a way out of the dilemma. He was cornered. There 
 was no way of escape. 
 
 And then, as he walked thus, thinking, and think- 
 ing hard, in the fierce, desperate, clearheadedness of a 
 strong, cool-nerved man face to face with despair, a 
 voice a female voice, lifted in song sounded across 
 his path, nearer and nearer. And now a wave of hope, 
 of relief, surged through Laurence Stanninghame's 
 heart, for there flooded in upon him, as with an in- 
 spiration, a way out of the situation. For he knew 
 both the voice and the singer, and at that moment 
 a turn in the bushes brought the latter and himself 
 face to face. 
 
 256 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 LINDELA. 
 
 A WOMAN, young, tall, perfectly proportioned, light 
 of colour, and with the bright and pleasing expression 
 common among the well-born of the Ba-gcatya 
 maidens, enhanced by large lustrous eyes, lips parted 
 in a smile half-startled, half-coquettish, revealing a 
 row of teeth of dazzling whiteness of unrivalled even- 
 ness. She wore a mutya or skirt of beautiful bead- 
 work, and a soft robe of dressed fawn-skin but half 
 concealed the splendid outlines of her frame. Withal 
 there was an aspect of dignity in her erect carriage, 
 and the pose of her head, which the Grecian effect of 
 the impiti, or cone into which her hair was gathered 
 above the scalp, went far to enhance. She was not 
 alone two other young women, also attractive of 
 aspect, being in attendance upon her, though these 
 held somewhat in the background. 
 
 " Greeting, Nyonyoba," she began, in a sweet and 
 musical voice. " I was startled for a moment here 
 where I expected to find none." 
 
 " To thee, greeting, daughter of the great," returned 
 Laurence, for this girl was a princess of the highest 
 rank in the nation, being, in fact, a daughter of Nond- 
 wana the king's brother that same chief whose son's 
 accession to manhood was to be the occasion of his 
 own departure to another sphere. Nor was it, indeed, 
 the first time these two had talked together. 
 
 257 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 "And why are you sad and heavy of countenance, 
 Nyonyoba? Was the hunt bad the game scarce?" 
 she went on, with a quick searching glance into his 
 eyes. 
 
 " Not so," he answered. " Those who are with me 
 bring on much ivory for the king's treasury. For 
 yourself, Lindela, I found a bright-plumaged and rare 
 bird, which I will stuff and set up for you." 
 
 The girl uttered a cry of delight, and her face 
 brightened. It so happened that Laurence was some- 
 thing of a taxidermist, and had already stuffed a few 
 birds and small animals for the chief's daughter, who 
 was as delighted with her increasing " museum " as 
 any child could have been. Now, in her unfeigned 
 glee over the prospect of a new specimen, Lindela 
 looked extremely attractive; and noting it, an uncon- 
 scious softness had crept into the man's tone. Even 
 the girls behind noticed it, and whispered to each 
 other, sniggering: 
 
 " Haul Isityeli! Quite a wooer! Nyonyoba is 
 hoeing up new land." 
 
 " Withdraw a little from these, Lindela," he said in 
 a lowered tone; " I would talk." 
 
 The chief's daughter made a barely perceptible 
 sign, but her attendants understood it, and remained 
 where they stood. 
 
 " The success or failure of a hunt is a small thing. 
 Such does not render a man heavy of countenance," 
 he went on, when they were beyond earshot. 
 
 " What does, then? " said the girl, raising her large 
 eyes swiftly to his. 
 
 " Sorrow parting. Such are the things which 
 258 
 
LINDELA. 
 
 make life dark. I have dwelt long among your 
 people, and at the prospect of leaving them my heart 
 is sore." 
 
 As the last words left his lips, Laurence learned in 
 just one brief flash of a second exactly what he wanted 
 to know. But the look of startled pain in Lindela's 
 face gave way to one of surprise. 
 
 " Of leaving them? " she echoed. " Has the Great 
 Great One, then, ordered you to begone, Nyonyoba? " 
 
 " Not yet. But it will be so. Listen! At the full 
 of the second moon." 
 
 A cry escaped her. She understood. For a mo- 
 ment the self-control of her savage ancestors entirely 
 forsook her. She became the child of nature all 
 human. 
 
 " It shall not be! It shall not be! " 
 
 The passion, the abandonment in the soft, liquid 
 Zulu tone in the large eyes, transforming the whole 
 attractive face touched even him penetrated even 
 the scaly armour which encased his hardened heart. 
 Considerations of expediency no longer reigned there 
 alone as he stood face to face with the chief's daugh- 
 ter. She was a magnificent specimen of womanhood, 
 he decided, gazing with unfeigned admiration upon 
 her splendid frame, upon the unconscious grace of her 
 every movement. 
 
 " If I go, I return not ever," he went on, resolved 
 to strike while the iron was hot to strike as hard as 
 he knew how. " Yet how to remain for the brother 
 of the king is so great a chief that he who would ap- 
 proach him with lobola * would need to own half the 
 
 * Payment of cattle made to the father of a girl sought in marriage. 
 259 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 wealth of the Ba-gcatya people. Now I, who owned 
 much wealth, am yet poor to-day, for the Ba-gcatya 
 have killed all my slaves, and the king has taken my 
 ivory and goods." 
 
 The girl's eyes sparkled. Perhaps she too had 
 learned something she wanted to know; indeed, it 
 must have been so, for her whole face was lit up with 
 a gladsome light, a wonderfully attractive light. 
 
 " Perchance the king will return some of it," she 
 said. " Yet you are a white man, and strong, Ny- 
 onyoba are all white men like you, I wonder? and 
 can overcome all difficulties. Listen! You shall not 
 leave us at the full of the second moon. Now, fare- 
 well and forget not my name."* 
 
 There was a grandeur of resolution in her tone, in 
 her glance, as she uttered these last words, her lus- 
 trous eyes, wide and clear, meeting his full. Lau- 
 rence, standing there gazing after the tall, retreating 
 form of the chiefs daughter, felt something like a 
 sense of exultation stealing over him. His scheme 
 seemed already to glow with success. He had sus- 
 pected for some time that Lindela regarded him with 
 more than favour; and indeed, while weighing the 
 prospect of casting in his lot with the Ba-gcatya, he 
 had already in his own mind marked her out to share 
 it. Now, however, the thing had become imperative. 
 In order to save not merely his life, but to escape a 
 fate which brooded over him with a peculiarly haunt- 
 ing horror, he had got to do this thing, to take to 
 wife, according to the customs of the Ba-gcatya, the 
 
 *" Lindela" means to "wait for" in the sense of "to watch 
 for," hence the full significance of the parting remark. 
 
 260 
 
LINDELA. 
 
 daughter of Nondwana, the niece of the king. Then 
 not a man in the nation dare raise a hand against 
 him; and the dour priesthood of the Spider might 
 look further for their victim and might find in their 
 selection one much more remote from the throne. 
 
 And now that he was face to face with the prospect, 
 it struck him as anything but an unpleasing one. 
 Such an alliance would place him among the most 
 powerful chiefs in the land. All the ambition in the 
 adventurer's soul warmed to the prospect. To be 
 high in authority among this fine race, part-ruler 
 over this splendid country, sport in abundance, and 
 that of the most enthralling kind war occasionally; 
 to dwell, too, in the strong revivifying air of these 
 grand uplands ! Why, a man might live forever under 
 such conditions. 
 
 And the other side of the picture what was it? 
 Even if he returned to civilization even if it were 
 possible he would now return almost as poor as he 
 had quitted it, to the old squalid life, with its shifts 
 and straits. His whole soul sickened over the recol- 
 lection. Nothing could compensate for such noth- 
 ing. Besides, put nakedly, it amounted to this: His 
 experiences of respectability had been disastrous. 
 They had been such as to draw out all that was 
 latently evil in his nature, and, indeed, to implant 
 within him traits which at one time he could never 
 have suspected himself capable of harbouring. Physi- 
 cally it had reduced his system to the lowest. All 
 things considered, he could not think that the ad- 
 venturous life hard, unscrupulous, lawless as it was 
 had changed him for the worse. It had developed 
 
 261 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 many good traits, and had enabled him to forget many 
 evil ones. 
 
 " I would have speech with the king." 
 Those who sentinelled the gate of the great kraal, 
 Imvungayo, conferred a moment among themselves, 
 and immediately two men were sent to learn the royal 
 pleasure as to the request. Laurence Stanninghame, 
 awaiting their return, was taciturn and moody, and 
 as he gazed around his one thought was lest his 
 scheme should miscarry. The sun had just gone 
 below the western peaks, and a radiant afterglow lin- 
 gered upon the dazzling snow ridges, flooding some 
 with a roseate hue, while others seemed dyed blood- 
 red. Long files of women, calabash on head, were 
 wending up from the stream, singing as they walked, 
 or exchanging jests and laughter, their soft, rich 
 voices echoing melodiously upon the evening stillness. 
 Even the shrill " moo " of cattle, and the deep-toned 
 voices of men mellowed by distance, came not in- 
 harmoniously from the smaller kraals which lay 
 scattered along the hillside; and but for the shining 
 spearheads and tufted shields of the armed guard in 
 the great circle of Imvungayo, the scene was a most 
 perfect one of pastoral simplicity and peace. And 
 then, as the gray, pearly lights of evening, merging 
 into the sombre shades of twilight, drew a deepening 
 veil over this scene of fair and wondrous beauty, once 
 more the words of Lindela, in all their unhesitating 
 reassurance, seemed to sound in this man's ears, re- 
 kindling the fire of hope within his soul, perchance 
 rekindling fire of a different nature. 
 
 262 
 
LINDELA. 
 
 " The Great Great One awaits you, Nyonyoba." 
 
 Laurence started from his reverie, and, accom- 
 panied by two of the guards, proceeded across the 
 great open space in silence. At the gate of the 
 isigodhlo, an inclosure made of the finest woven 
 grass, and containing the royal dwellings, he depos- 
 ited his rifle on the ground, and, deliberately unbuck- 
 ling the strap of his revolver holster, placed that 
 weapon behind the other; and thus unarmed, accord- 
 ing to strict Zulu etiquette, he prepared to enter. An 
 inceku, or royal household servant, received him at 
 the gate, and the guards having saluted and with- 
 drawn, he was ushered by the attendant into the 
 king's presence. 
 
 The royal house, a large, dome-shaped, circular hut, 
 differed in no respect from the others, save that it 
 was of somewhat greater size. Laurence, standing 
 upright within it, could make out three seated figures, 
 the shimmer of their head-rings and the occasional 
 shine of eyeballs being the only distinct feature about 
 them. Then somebody threw an armful of dry twigs 
 upon the fire which burned in the centre, and as the 
 light crackled up he saw before him the king and the 
 two fighting indunas, Ngumunye and Silawayo. 
 
 " Bayete! " he exclaimed, lifting his hat courteously. 
 
 " I behold you, Nyonyoba," replied the king. 
 "Welcome be seated." 
 
 With a murmur of acknowledgment, Laurence 
 subsided upon the grass mat which had been placed 
 for him by the inceku, who had followed him in. 
 Then there was silence for a few moments, while a 
 couple of women entered, bearing large clay bowls of 
 
 263 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 tyivala, or native beer; and the liquor having been 
 apportioned out according to etiquette, the attend- 
 ants withdrew, leaving Laurence alone with the king 
 and the two indunas. 
 
 " And the hunt, has it been propitious?" began 
 Tyisandhlu presently. 
 
 " It has. Ten tusks of ivory are even now being 
 brought in," replied Laurence. " Also an unusually 
 fine leopard skin which fell to my bullet, and which 
 I would beg the king to accept." 
 
 " You are a great hunter, Nyonyoba a very great 
 one. Whau! The Ba-gcatya will become too rich 
 if you tarry long among us," said Tyisandhlu quiz- 
 zically, but evidently pleased at the news. " We shall 
 soon be able to arm the whole nation with the fire- 
 weapons, now that we have so much ivory to trade 
 with the northern peoples." 
 
 Something in the words struck Laurence. " If 
 you tarry long among us," the king had said. Even 
 these were ominous, and made in favour of the sinister 
 design he had so accidentally discovered. Yet could 
 this courtly hospitality, of which he was the object, 
 indeed cover such a horrible purpose? Well, he 
 dare not bolster himself up with any hope to the con- 
 trary, for now many and many an incident returned 
 to his mind, little understood at the time, but, in the 
 light of the conversation he had overheard, as clear 
 as noonday. The fear, the anxiety, too, which had 
 flashed over the face of Lindela at his significant 
 words, proved that the ordeal through which it was 
 designed to pass him was a real and a terrible one. 
 
 264 
 
LINDELA. 
 
 Through her, and her only, lay his chance of escap- 
 ing it. 
 
 " I am glad the king is pleased," he went on, " for 
 I would fain tarry among the Ba-gcatya forever. 
 And, becoming one of that people, shall not all my 
 efforts turn towards rendering it a great people? " 
 
 A hum of astonishment escaped the two indunas, 
 and Laurence thought to detect the same significant 
 look on both their faces. Then he added: 
 
 " And those whom I have already taught in the 
 use of the fire-weapon, they are strong in it, and 
 reliable?" 
 
 " That is so," assented Tyisandhlu. 
 
 " And I have taught many the ways of the chase, 
 no less than the more skilled ways of war that too 
 is true, O Burning Wind?" 
 
 " That too is true," repeated the king. 
 
 " Good. And now I would crave a boon. While 
 the People of the Spider have become more formid- 
 able in war, while the ivory comes pouring into the 
 king's treasury, faster than ever it did before, so that 
 soon there will be enough to buy fire-weapons for the 
 whole nation, I who brought all this to pass remain 
 poor am the poorest in the nation and the 
 daughters of the Ba-gcatya are fair exceeding fair." 
 
 " Whan! " exclaimed the two indunas simulta- 
 neously, with their hands to their mouths. But 
 Tysandhlu said nothing, though a very humorous 
 gleam seemed to steal over his fine features in the 
 firelight. 
 
 "The daughters of the Ba-gcatya are exceeding 
 265 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 fair," repeated Laurence, " but I, the poorest man in 
 the nation, cannot take wives. For how shall I go to 
 the father of a girl and say, ' Lo, I desire thy daugh- 
 ter to wife, but my slaves have been killed, and my 
 other possessions are now the property of the king; 
 yet inasmuch as I cannot offer lobola, having nothing, 
 give her to me on the same terms?' My house will 
 not grow great in that way. Say now, Ndabezita, 
 will it? " 
 
 " I think not, Nyonyoba," answered the king, 
 struggling to repress a laugh. " Yet perhaps a way 
 may be found out of that difficulty, for in truth thou 
 hast done us good service already. But we will talk 
 further as to this matter in the future. For the 
 present, here waits outside one who will show thee 
 what thou wilt be glad to see." 
 
 Quick to take this hint of dismissal, Laurence now 
 arose, saluted the king, and retired, not ill-pleased 
 so far with the results of his interview. For in the 
 circumlocutory native way of dealing with matters of 
 importance, Tyisandhlu had received with favour his 
 request, preferred after the same method, that some 
 of his possessions should be restored to him. Then 
 he would offer lobola for Lindela, and 
 
 " I accompany you farther, Nyonyoba, at the word 
 of the Great Great One, by whose light we live." 
 
 The voice of the inceku who had ushered him forth 
 broke in upon his meditations. This man, instead of 
 leaving him at the gate of the isigodhlo, still kept at 
 his side, and Laurence, manifesting no curiosity, hav- 
 ing picked up his weapons where he had left them, 
 accompanied his guide in silence. 
 
 266 
 
LINDELA. 
 
 They passed out of Imvungayo, and after walking 
 nearly a mile came to a large kraal, which Laurence 
 recognized as that of Nondwana, the king's brother. 
 And now, for the first time, he felt a thrill of interest 
 surge through him. Nondwana's kraal! Had Tyis- 
 andhlu, divining his wishes, indeed forestalled them? 
 But this idea was as quickly dismissed as formulated. 
 The king had probably ordered that one or two of the 
 Ba-gcatya girls should be allotted to him possibly 
 chosen from those in attendance upon the royal wives. 
 His parting remark seemed to point that way. 
 
 " Enter," said the inceku, halting before one of the 
 huts. " Enter, and good go with thee. I return to 
 the king. Fare thee well ! " 
 
 Laurence bent down and pushed back the wicker 
 slab that formed the door of the hut, and, having 
 crawled through the low, beehive-like entrance, stood 
 upright within, and instinctively kicked the fire into 
 a blaze. And then, indeed, was amazement wild, 
 incredulous, bewildering amazement his dominant 
 feeling, for by the light thus obtained he saw that 
 the hut was tenanted by two persons. No feminine 
 voice, however, was raised to bid him welcome in the 
 soft tongue of the Ba-gcatya, but a loud, full- 
 flavoured, masculine English one: 
 
 " Stanninghame by the great Lord Harry! Oh, 
 kind Heavens, am I drunk or dreaming? " 
 
 267 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 AS FROM THE DEAD. 
 
 " THERE, there, Holmes. Do you quite intend to 
 maim a chap for life, or what? " exclaimed Laurence, 
 liberating, with an effort, his hand from the other's 
 wringing grasp. " And Hazon, too? In truth, life 
 is full of surprises. How are you, Hazon? " 
 
 " So so," was the reply, as Hazon, who had been 
 biding the evaporation of his younger friend's effusive- 
 ness, now came forward. But his handshake was 
 characteristic of the man, for it was as though they 
 had parted only last week, and that but temporarily. 
 
 "And is it really you yourself, old chap?" rattled 
 on Holmes. " It's for all the world as if you had 
 risen from the dead. Why, we never expected to 
 set eyes on you again in life did we, Hazon? " 
 
 " Not much," assented that worthy laconically. 
 
 " Well, I can say the same as regards yourselves," 
 rejoined Laurence. " What in the world made them 
 give you quarter? " 
 
 " Don't know," answered Hazon. " We managed 
 to get together, back to back, we two, and were fight- 
 ing like cats. Holmes got a shot on the head with 
 a club that sent him down, and I got stuck full of 
 assegais till I couldn't see. The next thing I knew 
 was that we were being carted along in the middle of 
 a big impi Heaven knew where. One thing, we were 
 
 268 
 
AS FROM THE DEAD. 
 
 both alive alive and kicking, too. As soon as we 
 were able to walk they assegaied our bearers, and 
 made us walk." 
 
 " Don't you swallow all that, Stanninghame," cut 
 in Holmes. " He fought, standing over me fought 
 like any devil, the Ba-gcatya say, although he makes 
 out now it was all playful fun." 
 
 " Well, for the matter of that, we had to fight," re- 
 joined Hazon tranquilly. " Where have you been all 
 this time, Stanninghame?" 
 
 " Here, at Imvungayo. And you two? " 
 
 " Shot if I know. They kept us at some place away 
 in the mountains. Only brought us here a few days 
 back." 
 
 " They won't let us out in the daytime," chimed in 
 Holmes. " And it's getting deadly monotonous. 
 But tell us, old chap, how it is they didn't stick 
 you?" 
 
 This, however, Laurence, following out a vein of 
 vague instinct, had decided not to do, wherefore he 
 invented some commonplace solution. And it was 
 with strange and mingled feelings he sat there listen- 
 ing to his old confederates. For months he had not 
 heard one word of the English tongue, and now these 
 two, risen, as it were, from the very grave, seemed 
 to bring back all the past, which, under novel and 
 strange conditions, had more and more been fading 
 into the background. He was even constrained to 
 admit to himself that such feelings were not those of 
 unmingled joy. He had almost lost all inclination to 
 escape from among this people, and now these two, by 
 the very associations which their presence recalled, 
 
 26f 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 were likely to unsettle him again, possibly to his own 
 peril and undoing. Anyway, he resolved to say noth- 
 ing as to the incident of " The Sign of the Spider." 
 
 " Well, you seem to have got round them better 
 than we did, Stanninghame," said Hazon, with a 
 glance at the Express rifle and revolver wherewith 
 the other was armed. " We have hardly been allowed 
 so much as a stick." 
 
 " So? Well, I've been teaching some of them to 
 shoot. That may have had a little to do with it. In 
 fact, I've been laying myself out to make thoroughly 
 the best of the situation." 
 
 " That's sound sense everywhere," rejoined Hazon. 
 <7 You can't get Holmes here to see it, though. He's 
 wearing out his soul-case wanting to break away." 
 
 This was no more than the truth. Laurence, seated 
 there, narrowly watching his old comrades, was 
 swift to notice that whereas these months of captivity 
 and suspense had left Hazon the same cool, saturnine, 
 philosophical being he had first known him, upon 
 Holmes they had had quite a different effect. There 
 was a restless, eager nervousness about the younger 
 man; a sort of straining to break away even, as the 
 more seasoned adventurer had described it. The fact 
 was, he was getting desperately home-sick. 
 
 " I wish I had never had anything to do with this 
 infernal business," he now bursts forth petulantly. 
 " I swear I'd give all we have made to be back safe 
 and snug in Johannesburg, with white faces around 
 us, even though I were stony broke." 
 
 " Especially one ' white face,' " bantered Laurence. 
 " Well, keep up your form, Holmes. You may be 
 
 270 
 
AS FROM THE DEAD. 
 
 back there yet, safe and sound, and not stony broke 
 either." 
 
 " No, no. There is a curse upon us, as I said all 
 along. No good will come to us through such gains. 
 We shall never return never." 
 
 And then Laurence looked across at Hazon, and 
 the glance, done into words, read : " What the mis- 
 chief is to be made of such a prize fool as this? " 
 
 The night was spent in talking over past experi- 
 ences, and making plans for the future, as to which 
 latter Hazon failed not to note, with faint amusement, 
 blended with complacency, that the disciple had, if 
 anything, surpassed his teacher. In other words, 
 Laurence entered into such plans with a luke-warm- 
 ness which would have been astonishing to the super- 
 ficial judgment, but was not so to that of his listener. 
 
 Nondwana, the brother of the king, was seated 
 among a group of his followers in the gate as Lau- 
 rence went forth the next morning to return to his own 
 quarters. This chief, though older than Tyisandhlu 
 in years, was not the son of the principal wife of their 
 common father, wherefore Tyisandhlu, who was, had, 
 in accordance with native custom, succeeded. There 
 had been whisperings that Nondwana had attempted 
 to oppose the accession, and very nearly with success ; 
 but whether from motives of policy or generosity, 
 Tyisandhlu had foreborne to take his life. The for- 
 mer motive may have counted, for Nondwana exer- 
 cised a powerful influence in the nation. In aspect, 
 he was a tall, fine, handsome man, with all the dignity 
 of manner which characterized his royal brother, yet 
 
 271 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 there was a sinister expression ever lurking in his face 
 a cruel droop in the corner of the mouth. 
 
 " Greeting, Nyonyoba. And is it good once mora 
 to behold a white face? " said the chief, a veiled irony 
 lurking beneath the outward geniality of his tone. 
 
 " To behold the face of a friend once more is always 
 good, Branch of a Royal Tree," returned Laurence, 
 sitting down among the group to take snuff. 
 
 " Even when it is that of one risen from the dead? " 
 
 " But here it was not so, Ndabezita. My * Spider ' 
 told me that these were all the time alive," rejoined 
 Laurence, with mendacity on a truly generous scale. 
 
 " Ha! thy Spider? Yet thou art not of the People 
 of the Spider." 
 
 " But I bear the sign," touching his breast. " There 
 are many things made clear to me, which may or 
 may not be set forward in the light of all at the 
 fall of the second moon. Farewell now, Son of the 
 Great." 
 
 The start of astonishment, the murmur which ran 
 round the group, was not lost upon him. It was all 
 confirmatory of what he had heard. And then, as he 
 walked back to his tent in Silawayo's kraal, it 
 occurred to Laurence that he had probably made a 
 false move. Nondw r ana, who, of course, was not 
 ignorant of his daughter's partiality, would almost 
 certainly decide that Lindela had betrayed the secret 
 and sinister intent to its unconscious object; and in 
 that event, how would it fare with her? He felt more 
 than anxious. The king might take long in deciding 
 whether to restore his property or not, and etiquette 
 forbade him to refer to the matter again at any rate 
 
 272 
 
AS FROM THE DEAD. 
 
 for some time to come. That Nondwana might de- 
 mand too much lobola, or possibly refuse it altogether 
 as coming from him, was a contingency which, 
 strange to say, completely escaped Laurence's schem- 
 ing mind. 
 
 " Greeting, Nyonyoba. Thy thoughts are deep 
 ever deep." 
 
 The voice, soft, rich, bantering, almost made him 
 start as he raised his eyes, to meet the glad laughing 
 ones of the object of his thoughts at that moment, 
 the chief's daughter. 
 
 " What do you here, wandering alone, Lindela? " 
 he said. 
 
 " Ha ha! Now you did well to say my name like 
 that for does it not answer your question, ' to wait, 
 to watch for ' ? And what is meant for two ears is 
 not meant for four or six. I have news, but it is not 
 good." 
 
 They were standing in the dip of the path, where a 
 little runlet coursed along between high bush-fringed 
 banks, and the tall, graceful form of the girl stood 
 out in splendid relief from its background of foliage. 
 Not only for love had she awaited him hete, for her 
 eyes were sad and troubled as she narrated her dis- 
 coveries, which amounted to this: It was next to im- 
 possible for Laurence to escape the ordeal whatever 
 it might be. All of weight and position in the nation 
 were resolved upon it, and none more thoroughly so 
 than Nondwana. The king himself would be power- 
 less to save him, even if he wished, and, indeed, why 
 should he run counter to the desire of a whole nation, 
 
 273 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 and that on behalf of a stranger, some time an 
 enemy? 
 
 Laurence, listening, felt his anxiety deepen. The 
 net was closing in around him, had indeed already 
 closed, and from it there was no outlet. 
 
 " See now, Lindela," he said gravely, his eyes full 
 upon the troubled face of the girl, " if this thing has 
 got to be, there is no help for it. And, however it 
 turns out, the world will go on just the same and the 
 sun rise and set as before. Why grieve about it? " 
 
 " Because I love you love you do you hear? I 
 know not how it is. We girls of the Ba-gcatya do not 
 love not like this. We like to be married to men 
 who are great in the nation powerful indunas if not 
 too old, or those who have much cattle, or who will 
 name us for their principal wife; but we know not 
 how to love. Yet you have taught me, Nyonyoba. 
 Say now, is it through the magic of the white people 
 you have done it? " 
 
 " It may be so," replied Laurence, smiling queerly 
 to himself, as he thought how exactly, if uncon- 
 sciously, this alluring child of nature had described 
 her civilized sisters. Then his face became alert and 
 watchful. He was listening intently. 
 
 " I, too, heard something," murmured Lindela, 
 scarcely moving her lips. " I fear lest we have been 
 overlooked. Now, fare thee well, for I must return. 
 But my ears are ever open to what men say, and my 
 father talks much, and talks loud. It may be that I 
 may learn yet more. But, Nyonyoba, delay not in 
 thy first purpose, lest it be too late; and remember, 
 Nondwana has a covetous hand. Fare thee well." 
 
 274 
 
AS FROM THE DEAD. 
 
 Left alone, Laurence thought he might just as well 
 make sure that no spy had been watching them. Yet 
 though he examined the banks of the stream for 
 some little distance around, he could find no trace of 
 any human presence, no mark even, however faint, of 
 human foot. Still, as he gained his own quarters in 
 Silawayo's kraal, a presentiment lay heavy upon him 
 a weird, boding presentiment of evil to come of 
 evil far nearer at hand than he had hitherto deemed. 
 
 Long and hard he slept, for he was weary with 
 wakefulness and anxiety. And when he awoke at 
 dusk, intending to seek an interview with the king, 
 he beheld that which in no wise tended to allay his 
 fears. For as he drew nearer to Imvungayo there 
 issued from its gate a crowd of figures of black, gro- 
 tesque, horrible figures, and in the midst a man, whom 
 they were dragging along in grim silence, even as they 
 had hauled Lutali to his unknown doom, and as they 
 disappeared into the gathering darkness, Laurence 
 knew only too well that here was another victim 
 another hideous sacrifice to the grisly and mysterious 
 demon-god. No wonder his blood grew chill within 
 him. Would he be the next? 
 
 " And you would still become one of us, Nyon- 
 yoba?" 
 
 " I would, Great Great One ; and to this end have 
 I sent much ivory, and many things the white people 
 prize, including three new guns and much ammuni- 
 tion, to Nondwana." 
 
 "Ha! Nondwana's hand is large, and opens wide," 
 said the king, with a hearty chuckle. " Yet Lindela 
 
 275 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 is a sprig of a mighty tree. And I think, Nyonyoba, 
 you yourself are sprung from such a root." 
 
 " That is no lie, Ruler of the Wise. As a man's 
 whole height is to the length of half his leg, so is the 
 length of my house to that of the kings of the 
 Ba-gcatya, or even to that of Senzangakona * himself." 
 
 " Ha! That may well be. Thou hast a look that 
 way." 
 
 This conversation befell two days after the events 
 just described. The king had refused him an audi- 
 ence on that evening, and indeed since until now. 
 But in the meantime, by royal orders, a great portion 
 of the plunder taken from the slave-hunters' camp 
 had been restored to him, considerably more, indeed, 
 than he had expected. And now he and Tyisandhlu 
 were seated once more together in the royal dwelling, 
 this time alone. 
 
 " But to be sprung from an ancient tree avails a 
 man nothing in my country if he is poor," went on 
 Laurence. " Rather is it a disadvantage, and he had 
 better have been born among the meaner sort. That 
 is why I have found my way hither, Ndabezita." 
 
 "That is why? And you have gained the desired 
 riches? " said the king, eyeing him narrowly. 
 
 " I had nearly, when the Ba-gcatya fell upon my 
 camp, and killed my people and my slaves. Now, 
 having lost all, I care not to return to my own land." 
 
 " But could you return rich you would care so to 
 return?" 
 
 "That is so, Root of a Royal Tree. With large 
 
 * Founder of the Zulu dynasty, and of course patriarchally greater 
 than the royal house of this Zulu-originated tribe. 
 
 276 
 
AS FROM THE DEAD. 
 
 possessions it is indeed a pleasant land to dwell in 
 with no possessions a man might often think long- 
 ingly of the restful sleep of death." 
 
 " That may well be," said Tyisandhlu thoughtfully. 
 " The cold and the gloom and the blackness, the fogs 
 and the smoke the mean and horrible-looking people 
 who go to make up the larger portion of its inhabi- 
 tants. Whan, Nyonyoba, I know more of your white 
 people and their country than anyone here dreams, 
 and it is as you say. Without that which should 
 raise him .above such horrors as this, a man might as 
 well be dead." 
 
 " Wherefore I prefer to live in the land of the Ba- 
 gcatya rather than die in my own. But whoever 
 brought hither that description of our land told a 
 wonderfully true tale, Ruler of the Great." 
 
 Tyisandhlu made no reply, but reaching out his 
 hand he took up a whistle and blew a double note 
 upon it. Immediately there entered an inceku. 
 
 " Let no man approach until this note shall again 
 sound," said the king. " Preserve clear a wide space 
 around, lest the ear that opens too wide be removed 
 from its owner's head. Go." 
 
 The man saluted humbly and withdrew. And then 
 for long did they sit together and talk in a low tone, 
 the barbarian monarch and the white adventurer and 
 the subject of their talk seemed fraught with some 
 surprise to the latter, but with satisfaction to both. 
 
 " See now, Nyonyoba," concluded the king. 
 " They have brought you here, here whence no man 
 ever returned; and you would become one of us* 
 Well, be it so. There is that about you I trust." 
 
 277 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 " Whence no man ever returned? " echoed Lau- 
 rence. 
 
 " Surely. Ha! A white man found his way hither 
 once, but he was a preacher and I love not such. 
 He never returned." 
 
 " But what of my two friends? You will not harm 
 them, Ndabezita, because they are my friends, and 
 we have fought together many a long year," urged 
 Laurence. 
 
 " I will spare them for that reason. They shall be 
 led from the country with their eyes covered, lest they 
 find the way back again. But if they do they 
 likewise shall never depart from it. And now, Nyon- 
 yoba, all I have told you is between ourselves alone. 
 Breathe not a whisper of it or anything about me even 
 to your friends. For the present, farewell, and good 
 fortune be yours." 
 
 278 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIEND. 
 
 Now, if Laurence Stanninghame's prospects were 
 brightening, and his lines beginning to fall in pleasant 
 places, relatively speaking, that is, for everything is 
 relative in the conditions of life, the same held not 
 good as regards the other twain of our trio of adven- 
 turers. Both were kept prisoners in Nondwana's 
 kraal, and, save that they were not ill-treated, no es- 
 pecial consideration was shown them. They were 
 allowed to wander about the open space outside, but 
 watchful eyes were ever upon them, and did they ven- 
 ture beyond certain limits, they were speedily made 
 aware of the fact. No such distractions as joining in 
 the hunting parties, or coming and going at will such 
 as their more fortunate comrade enjoyed, were allowed 
 them, and against the deadly monotony of the life in 
 conjunction with a boding suspense as to their ultimate 
 fate did Holmes* restless spirit mightily chafe; in- 
 deed, at times he felt sore and resentful towards Lau- 
 rence. At such times Hazon's judicious counsel 
 would step in. 
 
 " Shall we never make a philosopher of you, 
 Holmes? " he would say. " Do you think, for in- 
 stance, that Stanninghame, faring no better than our- 
 selves, would improve our own lot any? No; rely 
 upon it, his standing in with the king and the rest of 
 them is doing us no harm in the long run." 
 
 279 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 "I suppose you're right, Hazon; and it's beastly 
 selfish of one to look upon it any other way," poor 
 Holmes would reply wearily. " But, O Lord, this is 
 deadly work. Is there no way of getting away from 
 here?" 
 
 " Not any at present. Yet you don't suppose I'm 
 keeping my eyes or ears shut, do you? We must 
 watch our chances, and see and hear all we can. I 
 believe Tyisandhlu is a decent fellow all round, and 
 mind, you do come across plenty of pretty good fel- 
 lows even among savages, whatever bosh some men 
 may talk to the contrary. But I don't care for Nond- 
 wana. I believe he'd make short work of us if he 
 dared. Possibly the king may be watching his 
 opportunity of smuggling us out of the country. At 
 any rate, I don't think he means us any harm, if only 
 by reason of the astonishing fancy he seems to have 
 taken to Stanninghame ! " 
 
 This, as we know, was very near the truth, though 
 far more so than the speakers guessed. For Lau- 
 rence, moved both by inclination and expediency, had 
 rigidly adhered to his promise of secrecy. If it 
 seemed hard that he should be compelled to shut his 
 companions out of his entire confidence, he consoled 
 himself with the certainty that their admission into 
 it, though it might encourage them mentally, could 
 in no wise benefit them materially very much the 
 reverse, indeed, for it would probably bring about 
 their destruction. 
 
 " Well, if anything is going to be done, it had 
 better be soon or not at all. It wouldn't take much 
 to send me clean off my chump," said Holmes de- 
 
 280 
 
HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIEND. 
 
 jectedly. " Every day I feel more inclined to break 
 out to run amuck in a crowd, if only for the sake of a 
 little excitement. Anything for a little excitement! " 
 
 The two were strolling up and down outside Nond- 
 wana's kraal. It was a still, hot morning; oppressive 
 as though a storm were brooding. A filmy haze lay 
 upon the lower valley bottom, and the ground gave 
 forth a shimmer of heat. Even the amphitheatre of 
 dazzling snow-peaks omitted to look cool against the 
 cloudless blue, while the coppery-terraced cliffs seemed 
 actually to glow as though red hot. 
 
 " I hate this," growled Holmes, looking around 
 upon as magnificent a scene of nature's grandeur as 
 the earth could show, " positively hate it. I shall 
 never be able to stand the sight of a mountain again 
 as long as I live once we are out of this. Oh, 
 Heavens, look! What a brute! " 
 
 His accents of shuddering disgust were explained. 
 Something was moving among the stones in front 
 something with great, hairy, shoggling legs, and a 
 body the size of a thrush and much the same colour. 
 A spider, could it be, of such enormous size? Yet 
 it was; and as truly repulsive and horrible-looking a 
 monster as ever made human flesh creep at beholding. 
 
 Whack! The stone flung by Holmes struck the 
 ground beside the creature; struck it hard. 
 
 " Hold, you infernal fool," half snarled, half yelled 
 Hazon. But before he could arrest the other's arm, 
 whack! went a second stone. The aim was true, the 
 grisly beast, crushed and maimed, lay contracting and 
 unfolding its horrible legs in the muscular writhings 
 of its death throes. 
 
 281 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 " What's the row, eh?" grumbled Holmes, staring 
 open-mouthed, under the impression that his comrade 
 had gone mad, and at first sight not without reason, 
 for Hazon's face had gone a swarthy white, and his 
 eyes seemed to glare forth from it like blazing coals. 
 
 " Row? You fool, you've signed our death-war- 
 rant, that's all. Here, quick, pretend to be throwing 
 stones on to it, as if we were playing at some game. 
 Don't you see? The name of this tribe People of the 
 Spider! They venerate the beast. If we have been 
 seen, nothing can save us." 
 
 " Oh, Heavens! " cried Holmes, aghast as the whole 
 ugly truth dawned upon him, setting to with a will 
 to pile stones upon the remains of the slain and 
 shattered monster. 
 
 " Too late ! " growled Hazon. " We have been 
 seen! Look." 
 
 Several women were running stealthily and in alarm 
 towards the gate, and immediately a frightful uproar 
 arose from within. Armed with sticks and spears, 
 the warriors came pouring forth, and in a moment 
 had surrounded the two a howling, infuriated, 
 threatening mob. 
 
 Although expecting nothing less than instant death, 
 with the emergency Hazon's coolness had returned. 
 He stood in the midst of the appalling uproar, 
 apparently unmoved. Holmes, on the other hand, 
 looked wildly around, but less in fear than in despera- 
 tion. He was calculating his chances of being able to 
 snatch a weapon from one of them, and to lay 
 about him in the last fierce battle for life. " Anything 
 for a little excitement!" he had said. In very truth 
 
 282 
 
HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIEND. 
 
 his aspiration was realized. There was excitement 
 enough in the brandished spears and blazing eyeballs, 
 in the infuriated demoniacal faces, in the deafening, 
 roaring clamour. 
 
 " This is no matter for you," cried Hazon in firm, 
 ringing tones. " Take us to the king. We can ex- 
 plain. The affair was an accident." 
 
 At this the ferocious tumult redoubled. An acci- 
 dent! They had lifted their hand against the great 
 tutelary Spider that guarded Nondwana's house! An 
 accident! 
 
 "Hold! To the king let them be taken!" inter- 
 posed a strong, deep voice. And extending his hands, 
 as though to arrest the uplifted weapons, Nondwana 
 himself stalked into the circle. 
 
 There was no gainsaying the mandate of one so 
 great. Weapons were lowered, but still vociferating 
 horrible threats, the crowd, with the two offenders in 
 its midst, moved in the direction of Imvungayo. 
 
 But it seemed as though the wild, pealing shouts 
 of rage and consternation were a very tocsin ; for now 
 from every kraal, near and far, the inhabitants came 
 surging forth, streaming down the hillsides over the 
 face of the plain like swarming ants and before they 
 reached Imvungayo the two whites seemed to move 
 in the midst of a huge sea of gibing, infuriated faces, 
 as the dark crowd, gathering volume, poured onward, 
 rending the air with deafening shouts of execration 
 and menace. But the royal guards barred the gate, 
 suffering no entrance save on the part of the two 
 white men, together with Nondwana and a few of the 
 greater among the people. 
 
 283 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 " This is the tightest place we have been in yet," 
 murmured Hazon. " To tread on the superstitions 
 of any race is to thrust one's head into the jaws of a 
 starved lion." 
 
 "D their filthy superstition," said Holmes, 
 
 savagely desperate. " Well, I did the thing, so I sup- 
 pose I shall be the one to suffer." 
 
 The other said nothing. He had a shrewd sus- 
 picion that more than one life would be required in 
 atonement. But he and death had stared each other 
 in the face so frequently that once more or less did 
 not greatly matter. 
 
 On learning the cause of the tumult, Tyisandhlu 
 had come forth, and now sat, as he frequently did, to 
 administer justice at the head of the great central 
 space. When the shouts of " bonga! " which greeted 
 his presence had subsided, he ordered that the two 
 whites should be brought forward. 
 
 This was the first time the latter had seen the king, 
 and now, as they beheld his stately, commanding bear- 
 ing, calm and judicial, both of them, Holmes 
 especially, began to hope. They would explain the 
 matter, and offer ample apologies. The owner of 
 that fine, intellectual countenance, savage though he 
 might be called, he, surely, had a soul above the de- 
 based superstitions of his subjects. Hitherto he had 
 spared their lives surely now he would not sacrifice 
 them to the clamour of a mob. Yet, as Hazon had 
 said, to tread on the superstitions of any race was the 
 most fatal thing on earth. 
 
 "What is this that has been done?" spoke the 
 king, when he had heard all that the accusers had to 
 
 284 
 
HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIEND. 
 
 say. " Surely no such deed has been wrought among 
 us since the Ba-gcatya have been a nation." 
 
 There was a sternness, a menace even, in the full, 
 deep voice, that dispelled all hope in the minds of the 
 two thus under judgment. They had committed the 
 one unpardonable sin. In vain Hazon elaborately ex- 
 plained the whole affair, diplomatically setting forth 
 that the act being accidental, and done by strangers 
 and white people, in ignorance, no ill-luck need be- 
 fall the nation, as might be the case were the symbol 
 of its veneration offended by its own people. The 
 voice of the king was more stern than before almost 
 jeering. 
 
 " Accidental ! " he repeated. " Even though it be 
 so, accidents often bring greater evil in their results 
 than the most deliberate wrong-doing for such is the 
 rule of life." 
 
 "That is so!" buzzed the indunas grouped on 
 either side of the king. " Au! hear the wisdom of 
 the Burning North Wind! " 
 
 " Well, then, in this matter atonement must be 
 made. It appears that one only was concerned in it, 
 and that one is Nomtyeketye." 
 
 This was the somewhat uncomplimentary nickname 
 by which Holmes was known, bestowed upon him on 
 account of his talkative tendencies as contrasted with 
 the laconic sententiousness of Hazon. 
 
 " I rule, therefore," went on the king, " that 
 Nomtyeketye be taken hence to where atonement is 
 offered. The other may depart from among us to 
 his own land." 
 
 A shout of approval rose from the vast crowd with- 
 285 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 out as the decision became known. Some there were 
 who clamoured for two victims but the king's de- 
 cision was not lightly to be questioned. And before 
 the shout had died into a murmur the whole multitude 
 of hideous black figures in their weird disguise came 
 bounding across the open space to seize their victim. 
 But before they could surround the latter an un- 
 looked-for interruption occurred. 
 
 " Hold! " cried a loud voice. " I have a favour to 
 ask the king. I, who bear the Sign!" And Lau- 
 rence, who in the midst of one of the listening groups 
 had been unseen hitherto, now came forward, none 
 hindering, and stood before the king. 
 
 A deep silence was upon all. Every head was bent 
 forward. The frightful priesthood of the demon 
 paused, with staring eyes, to wait on what new turn 
 events would take. 
 
 " Say on, Nyonyoba," said Tyisandhlu shortly, 
 looking anything but pleased at the interruption. 
 
 " It is this, O Burning Wind. Let Nomtyeketye 
 return to his own people. I will take his place." 
 
 "You?" exclaimed the king, as a gasp of amaze- 
 ment shivered through the listeners. 
 
 " Yes, I. Hearken, Ndabezita. I it was who 
 brought him hither. He is young, and his life is all 
 before him. Mine is all behind me, and lias been no 
 great gain at that. I will proceed with these " 
 with a glance in the direction of the blackly horrible 
 group " to where atonement is offered. But let the 
 two return together to their own land." 
 
 "Pause, Nyonyoba! Pause and think!" said the 
 king, speaking in a deep and solemn voice. ''That 
 
 286 
 
HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIEND. 
 
 which awaits you, if I grant your request, is of no 
 light order. Men have sought their own death rather 
 than face it. Pause, I say." Then rapidly, and 
 speaking very low : " Even I cannot save you there. 
 It may be that the Sign itself cannot." 
 
 Now, what moved him to an act of heroic self- 
 sacrifice, Laurence Stanninghame hardly knew him- 
 self. It may have been that he did not appreciate its 
 magnitude. It may have been that he held more than 
 a lingering belief that the king would find some secret 
 means for his deliverance, whereas to his younger 
 comrade no such way of escape lay open. Or was it 
 that at this moment certain words, spoken long ago 
 in warning, now stood forth clear and in flaming 
 letters upon his brain: "Other men have gone up 
 country with Hason, but not one of them has ever 
 returned! " He himself, abiding henceforward among 
 the Ba-gcatya, and Holmes consigned to the mysteri- 
 ous doom, would not those warning words be carried 
 out in all their fell fatality? But that after these years 
 of hardening in the lurid school of bloodshed and 
 ruthlessness he should be capable of sacrificing him- 
 self for another, through motives of impulsive gener- 
 osity, Laurence could not have brought himself to 
 believe. Indeed, he could not have defined his own 
 motives. 
 
 " Give me your word, Great Great One, in the sight 
 of the whole nation," he said in a loud voice, " that 
 these two shall be suffered to depart unharmed 
 now, at once and I will take the place of Nomtye- 
 ketye." 
 
 " That will I readily do, Nyonyoba. for I have no 
 287 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 need of strangers here such as these," answered 
 Tyisandhlu. Then, sadly, " And you are resolved? " 
 
 " I am." 
 
 " Then it must be. For ye two, go in peace; 
 enough shall be given you for your journey." 
 
 Holmes, who understood the language very im- 
 perfectly, had no clear notion, even then, of what had 
 taken place. But when he saw the gigantic forms in 
 their black disguise bounding forward to surround 
 Laurence, he, being otherwise unarmed, instinctively 
 threw himself into a boxing attitude, which was, un- 
 der the circumstances, ridiculous, if natural. 
 
 " Keep cool, you young idiot," snarled Hazon. 
 " We're out of this mess better than we deserve." 
 
 " Why, what's happened? " 
 
 " Stanninghame is acting substitute for you, and 
 we are to be fired out of the country, which is good 
 news to you, I take it." 
 
 " But I can't allow it! " cried Holmes bewilderedly, 
 as the truth began to dawn upon him. " No, hang it, 
 I can't, tell the king, I " 
 
 " No good! Keep your hair on! and remember, 
 too, it's more than probable he won't come to any 
 harm. He stands in with them too well." 
 
 Holmes, more than half reassured, suffered himself 
 to be persuaded especially as he was powerless to 
 do anything at all. But whether Hazon believed or 
 not in what he had just advanced must remain for- 
 ever locked up as a mystery in the breast of that in- 
 scrutable individual. One thing, however, he did not 
 believe in, and that was in he himself suffering for 
 the foolishness of other people. 
 
 288 
 
HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIEND. 
 
 Meanwhile Laurence, in the midst of his disguised 
 executioners, was pursued by the howling and execra- 
 tions of the crowds, which parted eagerly to make 
 way for their passage. Outside on the open plain a 
 vast mob of women had collected, yelling shrilly at 
 him and even pelting him with earth and sticks. One 
 of the latter, thrown at close quarters, hurling over the 
 heads of his guards, struck him on the shoulder, pain- 
 fully and hard. He looked up. It had been hurled 
 by the hand of Lindela; and as he met her eyes full, 
 the face which he had last looked upon softening and 
 glowing with the wondrous light of love, was now 
 wreathed into a horrible grin of hate and savagery. 
 
 " Yau! The Spider is hungry! Fare thee well, 
 Umtagati,"* jeered the chief's daughter shrilly. 
 
 * Doer of witchcraft. 
 
 289 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE PLACE OF THE HORROR. 
 
 WAS he awake asleep and dreaming or dead? 
 
 All these questions did Laurence Stanninghame 
 ask himself by turn as he recovered his confused and 
 scattered senses; and there was abundant scope for 
 such conjecture for, in truth, the place wherein he 
 found himself was a strange one. 
 
 A wall of rock arose on either side of him one 
 straight, perpendicular, the other overhanging, arch- 
 ing out above the first. As he lay there in the semi- 
 gloom, his first thought was that he was in a cave; a 
 further glance, however, convinced him that the place 
 was a gigantic fissure or rift. But how had he come 
 there? 
 
 With an effort, for he still fejt strangely languid 
 and confused, he sent his mind back to the events of 
 the previous day. Stay, though was it the previous 
 day? Somehow it seemed much longer ago. He re- 
 membered the long hurried march into the heart of 
 the mountains with his gruesome escort. He re- 
 membered partaking of a plentiful meal and some 
 excellent corn-beer; this he had done with a view to 
 keeping up his strength, which he might need to the 
 full. Then he remembered lio more. The liquor 
 had been drugged, he decided. 
 
 But to what end? To what end, indeed, was he 
 290 
 
" I AM DYING, BELOVED AND SHALL SOON GO INTO 
 THE DARK UNKNOWN." 
 
THE PLACE OF THE HORROR. 
 
 there? How had he been brought there? He raised 
 himself on his elbow and looked around. 
 
 He started. A large bundle lay beside him some- 
 thing rolled up in a native blanket. Speedily undoing 
 this, he discovered several grass baskets with lids. 
 These contained pounded corn, such as is eaten with 
 amati, or curdled milk and, indeed, a large calabash 
 of the latter, tightly stoppered, was among the stores. 
 Well, whatever was to become of him, he was not to 
 starve, anyhow. But was he only being fattened for 
 a worse fate? 
 
 Then a thought struck him, which set all his pulses 
 tingling into renewed life. He, too, had been sent 
 out of the country, and these stores were to last him 
 for, at any rate, part of his journey. True, the 
 prospect was anything but an exhilarating one, seeing 
 that he was unarmed, and had but the vaguest idea 
 ivhich way to turn; that the Ba-gcatya country was 
 surrounded by ferocious and hostile races. But then, 
 everything is relative in this world, and to a man 
 who has spent hours of a long day journeying towards 
 a mysterious, horrible, and certain death, the dis- 
 covery of release and life, even with such slender 
 chances, was joy after the boding dread which those 
 long hours had held for him. Yes, that was it, of 
 course. Tyisandhlu had not been faithless to the 
 friendship between them. While openly consenting 
 to his sacrifice, for even the king dare not, in such a 
 matter, run counter to the feelings of the nation, 
 Tyisandhlu had given secret orders that he should be 
 smuggled out of the country. 
 
 Having arrived at this conclusion, it occurred to 
 291 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 Laurence that he might as well explore a little. He 
 would leave his stores here for the present; for a 
 glance served to show that the rift or fissure ended 
 there, so taking only a handful of the pounded corn, 
 to eat as he walked, he started at once. 
 
 But there was a something, a cold creepiness in the 
 air perhaps, that quelled much of his new-born hope. 
 The rift seemed to form a kind of circle, for he walked 
 on and on, ever trending to the right, never able to 
 see more than a short distance in front; never able to 
 behold the sky. There was something silently, horri- 
 bly eloquent in the grim sameness of those tomblike 
 walls. Just then, to his relief, the semi-gloom widened 
 into light. The cliffs no longer overhung each other. 
 A narrow strip of sky became visible, and, in front, 
 the open daylight. 
 
 But with the joy of the discovery another sight met 
 his gaze, a sight which sent the blood tingling 
 through his veins. Yet, at first glance, it was not a 
 particularly moving one. On the ground, at his feet, 
 lay two unobtrusive-looking pebbles of a bluish gray. 
 But as the next moment he held them in his hands, 
 Laurence knew that he held in a moment what he had 
 gone through years of privation and ruthless blood- 
 shed to obtain wealth, to wit. For these two unob- 
 trusive pebbles were, in fact, splendid diamonds! 
 
 More of them? Of course there were. The 
 exploration could wait a little longer. An accident 
 might cut him off from this spot might cut him off 
 from such a chance forever. The hands of the 
 seasoned adventurer trembled like those of a palsied 
 old woman as he turned over the loose soil with his 
 
 292 
 
THE PLACE OF THE HORROR. 
 
 foot, for instrument of any kind he had none; and in- 
 deed, his agitation was not surprising, for in less than 
 an hour Laurence was in possession of eight more 
 splendid stones as large as the first, besides a number 
 of small ones. He knew that he held that which 
 'should enable him to pass the remainder of his life in 
 wealth and ease, could he once get safe away. 
 
 Could he? Ah, there came in the dead weight 
 the fulfilling of that strange irony of fate which well- 
 nigh invariably wills that the good of life comes to 
 us a trifle too late. For his search had brought him 
 quite into the open day once more. Before him lay 
 a valley or rather hollow of no great size, and it 
 was shut in completely walled in by an amphitheatre 
 of lofty cliffs. 
 
 Cliffs on all sides at some points smooth and per- 
 pendicular, at others actually overhanging, at others, 
 again, craggy and broken into terraces ; but, even with 
 the proper appliances, probably unscalable; that de- 
 tail his practised eye could take in at a glance. How, 
 then, should he hope to scale them, absolutely devoid, 
 as he was, of so much as a stick let alone a cord. 
 
 A cord? How had he been brought there? Had 
 he been let down by a cord or brought in by some 
 secret entrance? the latter appeared more probable; 
 and that entrance he would find, would find and 
 traverse, be its risks, be its terrors what they might. 
 He had that upon him now which rendered life worth 
 any struggle to preserve. 
 
 He stepped forth. The sky was over his head once 
 more, clear and blue. That was something. By the 
 slant of the sunrays he judged it must be about the 
 
 293 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 middle of afternoon. The floor of the hollow was 
 bumpy and uneven. Sparse and half-dry grass bents 
 sprung from the soil, but no larger vegetation no 
 trees, no brush. Stranger still, there was no sign of 
 life even of bird or insect life. An evil, haunted 
 silence seemed to brood over the great, crater-like 
 hollow. 
 
 The silence became weighty, oppressive. Laurence, 
 in spite of himself, felt it steal upon his nerves, and 
 began to whistle a lively tune as he walked slowly 
 around, examining the cliffs, and every crack and 
 cranny, with critical eye. The echoing notes re- 
 verberated weirdly among the brooding rocks. Sud- 
 denly his foot struck something something hard. 
 He looked down, and could not repress a start. There 
 at his feet, grinning up at him, lay a human skull 
 nay, more, a well-nigh complete skeleton. 
 
 It was a gruesome find under the circumstances. 
 Laurence, his nerves unstrung by the effects of the 
 drug, and recent alternations of exultation and what 
 was akin to despair, felt his flesh creep. What did 
 it mean? Why, that no way of escape did this valley 
 of death afford. This former victim had he been 
 placed there in the same way as himself, and, all 
 means of exit failing, had succumbed to starvation 
 when his provisions were exhausted? It looked that 
 way. Bending down, he examined this sorry relic of 
 humanity examined it long and carefully. No bone 
 was broken, the skeleton was almost complete; where 
 it was not, the joints had fallen asunder without 
 wrench, and the smooth round cranium showed not 
 the slightest sign of abrasion or blow. 
 
 294 
 
THE PLACE OF THE HORROR. 
 
 With sinking heart he pursued his search ; yet some- 
 how his attention now was given but languidly to 
 potential means of exit which the faces of the cliffs 
 might afford. Something seemed irresistibly to draw 
 it to the ground. Ha! that was it. Again that hor- 
 rid gleam of whitened bones. Another skeleton lay 
 before him and look, another, and another, at short 
 distances apart. All these, like the first, were un- 
 shattered, uninjured; but the whole area here was 
 strewn with skulls, yellow and brown with age, was 
 strewn with bones also, mossy, mahogany-hued, and 
 which crackled under his tread.' 
 
 No one could be more ruthless, more callous; no 
 man could view scenes of cruelty and bloodshed more 
 unmoved than Laurence Stanninghame, as we have 
 shown, or bear his part more coolly and effectively 
 in the fiercest conflict; yet there was something in 
 these silent human relics lying there bloodless; in the 
 unnatural, haunted silence of this dreadful death-val- 
 ley that caused his flesh to creep. Then he noticed 
 that all were lying along the slope of a ridge which 
 ran right across the hollow, dividing the floor of the 
 same into two sections. He must needs go over that 
 ridge to complete his explorations, yet now he shrank 
 from it with awe and repugnance which in any other 
 man he would have defined as little short of terror. 
 What would await him on the other side? 
 
 Well, he must go through with it. Probably he 
 would find more of such ghastly relics that was all. 
 But as he stood upon the apex of the ridge, with 
 pulses somewhat quickened, no whitening bones met 
 his gaze fixed, dilated as that gaze was. The cliff 
 
 295 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 in front he thought to descry some faint chance of 
 escape there, for its face was terraced and sloping 
 backward somewhat. Moreover, it was rent by cran- 
 nies and crevices, which, to a desperate and determined 
 man, might afford hand and foothold. 
 
 And now for the first time it flashed upon Laurence 
 that the mystery of " The Spider " stood explained. 
 This horrible hole whence there was no escape 
 where men were thrust to die by inches as all of these 
 had died before him the repulsive and blood-sucking 
 insect was in truth a fitting name allegorically for 
 such a place, which swallowed up the lives of men. 
 Besides, for all he knew, the configuration of the crater 
 might, from above, resemble the tutelary insect of the 
 Ba-gcatya. Yes; he had solved the mystery, as to 
 that he was confident the next thing to do was to 
 find some way out, to break through the fatality of 
 the place. 
 
 For the first time now his shoulder began to feel 
 stiff and sore, where the stick hurled by Lindela had 
 struck him. That was a bad preparation for the most 
 perilous kind of cliff-climbing. Then the incident re- 
 called to mind Lindela herself. Her sudden change of 
 front was just such an oddity as any of the half-ironical 
 incidents which go to make up the sum of life's ex- 
 periences. Well, savage or civilized, human nature 
 was singularly alike. A touch of superstition and the 
 god of yesterday became the demon of to-day. 
 
 Thus musing, he came, suddenly and unexpectedly, 
 upon another skeleton. But the effect of the dis- 
 covery of this was even more disconcerting than that 
 of the first. For, around, lay rotting rags of clothing, 
 
 296 
 
THE PLACE OF THE HORROR. 
 
 and a gold ornament or two. These remains he 
 recognized at a glance. They were those of Lutali. 
 
 Yes, here was a broad bracelet of gold, curiously 
 worked with the text of the Koran, which he had seen 
 last on the Arab's sinewy wrist. Now that wrist was 
 but a grisly bone. There, too, were parchment strips, 
 also inscribed with Koran passages, and worn in 
 a pouch as amulets. The identity of these remains 
 was established beyond a doubt. 
 
 But the discovery inspired within him a renewed 
 chill of despair. If Lutali had been unable to find 
 means of escape, how should he? The Arab was a 
 man of great readiness of resource, of indomitable 
 courage, and powerfully built. If such a one had 
 succumbed, why should he, Laurence, fare any better? 
 He sat down once more, and, gazing upon the sorry 
 remnant of his late confederate, began to think. 
 
 What a strange, vast, practical joke was that thing 
 called life. Here was he at the end of it, and the very 
 means of ending it for him had, at the same time, 
 put him into possession of that which rendered it 
 worth having at all. He felt the stones lying hard 
 and angular in his pockets, he even took out one of 
 them and turned it over sadly in his hands. He would 
 gladly give a portion of these to be standing on the 
 summit of yonder cliff instead of at the base; not yet 
 had he come to feel he would gladly give them all. It 
 was only of a continuance with what life had brought 
 him that he should be there at all. He had sacrificed 
 himself for another. The sublimity of the act even 
 yet did not strike him. He regarded it as half-humor- 
 ous, half-idiotic, the first because his cynical creed 
 
 297 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER, 
 
 was bolstered up by the consciousness that Holmes 
 would never more than half appreciate it; the last, 
 because well all unselfishness, all consideration, 
 was idiotic. 
 
 Then it occurred to him that it would be time 
 enough to sit down and dream when he had exhausted 
 all expedients, and he had not explored that side of the 
 hollow at all yet. To this end he moved forward. A 
 very brief scrutiny, however, of the face of the cliff 
 sufficed to show that for climbing purposes the cracks 
 and crannies were useless. 
 
 Ha! What was this? A cave or a rift? Right 
 in front of him the cliff yawned in just such a rift as 
 the one in which he had awakened to find himself, 
 only not on anything like such a large scale. Eagerly 
 Laurence plunged into this. Here might be a way to 
 the outer world to safety. 
 
 He pressed onward in the semi-gloom. The rocks 
 darkened overhead, forming, in effect, a cave. And 
 now it seemed that he could hear a strange, soft, scrap- 
 ing, a kind of sighing noise. A puff-adder was his 
 first thought, looking around for the reptile. But no 
 such reptile lay in his path, and he had no means of 
 striking a light. With a dull shrinking, his flesh 
 creeping with a strange foreboding, as with the con- 
 sciousness of some fearful prescience, he decided to 
 push on, being careful, however, to tread warily. 
 This was no time for sticking at trifles. 
 
 But as he advanced the air became foetid with a 
 strange, pungent, nauseous odour. There were 
 lateral clefts branching off the main gallery, but of no 
 depth, and to these he had given but small notice. 
 
 298 
 
THE PLACE OF THE HORROR. 
 
 Now, however, something occurred of so appalling a 
 nature that he stood as one turned to stone. 
 
 There shot out from one of these lateral recesses 
 two enormous tentacles black, wavy as serpents, 
 covered with hair, armed at the extremity with a 
 strong double claw. They reached forth noiselessly to 
 within a couple of yards of where he stood, then two 
 more followed with a quick, wavy jerk. And now 
 behind these, a head, as large as that of a man, black, 
 hairy, bearing a strange resemblance to the most awful 
 and cruel human face ever stamped with the devil's 
 image whose dull, goggle eyes, fixed on the appalled 
 ones of its discoverer, seemed to glow and burn with 
 a truly diabolical glare. 
 
 Laurence stood staring into the countenance of 
 this awful thing his blood curdled to ice within him, 
 his hair literally standing up. Was it the Fiend him- 
 self who had taken such unknown and fearful shape 
 to appear before him here in the gloom of this foul 
 and loathsome cavern? Then, as his eyes grew more 
 and more used to the dim shades, he made out a huge 
 body crouched back in the recess, half hidden by a 
 quivering mass of black, hairy tentacles. 
 
 For a few moments thus he stood then with a cry 
 of horror he threw out his hand as though instinct- 
 ively to ward off an attack. The four tentacles 
 already protruded were quickly withdrawn, and the 
 fearful creature, whatever it was, seemed to shrink 
 back into the cranny. One last look upon the hairy 
 heap of moving, writhing horror upon those dread- 
 ful demon eyes, and this man, who had faced death 
 again and again without shrinking, now felt it all he 
 
 299 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 could do to resist an impulse to turn and flee like a 
 hunted hare. He did, however, resist it yet it was 
 with flesh shuddering and knees trembling beneath 
 him that he withdrew, step by step, backwards, until 
 he stood once more in the full light of day. 
 
 300 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE HORROR. 
 
 VAMPIRE insect devil what was the thing? 
 From the length and thickness of those frightful tenta- 
 cle-like legs, stretching forth from the cranny Lau- 
 rence who had not halted until he had gained the 
 ridge dividing the hollow estimated that the crea- 
 ture when spread out must be eight or ten feet in 
 diameter. 
 
 He looked back. It had not followed him from the 
 cave. Why had it not? Was it waiting for night 
 to steal upon him in the darkness, to wreath around 
 him those terrible tentacles, and to drain his life- 
 blood? 
 
 Now, indeed, all stood clear. " The Spider " was 
 no allegorical term, but literal fact. That frightful 
 monster with which he had just come face to face was 
 indeed the demon-god of the Ba-gcatya! It was 
 actually fed with living men, in accordance with some 
 dark and mysterious superstition held by that other- 
 wise fine race. Now the fate of those whose skeletons 
 lay around stood accounted for. They had been de- 
 voured by this unimaginable horror. Alive? It was 
 almost certain possibly when weakened by starva- 
 tion. Yet a gruesome thought entered his mind. 
 Why had an abundance of food been lowered with 
 him into this hell-pit? Did not the circumstance 
 
 301 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 make as though it was in their full vigour that the 
 monster was designed to seize its victims and in that 
 event, with what an extent of strength and fell ferocity 
 must it not be endowed? 
 
 But what was this thing? Laurence had seen 
 spiders of every variety, huge and venomous, and of 
 grisly size, yet nothing like this. Why, the creature 
 was as large as a bear nearly ! It must be some beast 
 hitherto unknown to natural history; yet those awful 
 tentacles joints, hair, everything could not but 
 belong to an insect were, in fact, precisely as the legs 
 of a huge tarantula, magnified five hundred-fold. 
 What ghastly and blood-curdling freak of nature could 
 have produced such a monstrosity as this? Why, the 
 very sight of the awful thing huddled up, black, within 
 the gloom of the cranny, the horrid tentacles a 
 hundred-fold more repulsive, more blood-curdling 
 than though they actually were so many serpents 
 moving and writhing in a great quivering, hairy, in- 
 tertwined mass was in itself a sight to haunt his 
 dreams until his dying day, did he live another fifty 
 years. What must it mean, then, to realize that he 
 was actually shut in escape impossible with the 
 deliberate purpose of being devoured by this vampire, 
 this demon, even as all these others had been devoured 
 before him? 
 
 At this juncture of his meditations his mind became 
 alive to two discoveries one, that he had gained the 
 farther end of the ridge than that by which he had 
 crossed; the other, that immediately before and be- 
 neath him, just over the slope of the ridge, lay the 
 body of a man. 
 
 302 
 
THE HORROR. 
 
 Yes the body of a man, not the skeleton of one. 
 That it was that of a dead man he could see at a glance 
 also that it was one of the Ba-gcatya. With a 
 shudder he remembered the luckless wretch he had 
 seen dragged away but a day or two before his own 
 seizure whether for evil-doing or as a customary 
 sacrifice he had been condemned to this, Laurence 
 had not inquired at the time. Casting one more look 
 at the cave, and satisfying himself that the monster 
 had not emerged, Laurence went down to examine 
 the body. 
 
 It was that of a man in the prime of life and wear- 
 ing the head-ring. It was lying on its back, the 
 throat upturned and protruding. And then Lau- 
 rence shudderingly noticed two round gaping ori- 
 fices at the base of the throat, clearly where the great 
 nippers of the monster had punctured. The limbs, 
 too, were scratched and scored as though with claws; 
 and upon the dead face was such an awful expression 
 of the very extremity of horror and dread as the spec- 
 tator, accustomed as he was to such sights, had never 
 beheld stamped on the human countenance before. 
 And beholding it now, Laurence Stanninghame felt 
 that the perspiration was oozing upon him at every 
 pore, for he realized that he was looking upon a fore- 
 sight of his own fate; for was he not that most per- 
 fectly and completely helpless of all God's creatures 
 an unarmed man! 
 
 He had not so much as a stick or a pocket-knife to 
 resist the onslaught of this blood-drinking monster 
 no, not even a boot, for it flashed across his mind at 
 that moment that a good iron-shod heel might be 
 
 33 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 better than nothing. He was wearing only a low- 
 soled pair of ordinary velschoenen hide shoes, to wit. 
 There were not even stones lying about the ground, 
 save very small ones, and he had no means of loosen- 
 ing rock slabs large enough to serve as weapons. 
 There was no place of refuge to climb into afforded 
 by ledges or pinnacles of rock, and even were there, 
 why, the thing could surely come up after him as 
 easily as the common tarantula could run up a wall. 
 Nothing is more completely demoralizing than the 
 helplessness of an unarmed man. With his Express 
 or his six-shooter this one would have regarded the 
 situation in the light of a wholly new and adventurous 
 excitement with even a large strong-bladed knife he 
 would have been willing to take his chances. But he 
 was totally unarmed. It seemed to Laurence that in 
 that brief while he had lived a lifetime of mortal 
 fear. 
 
 Then with a mighty effort he pulled himself to- 
 gether. He would return to where he had left his 
 stores ere commencing the exploration. Nobody 
 ever yet improved a situation of peril by starving him- 
 self. Yet as he wended his way up the long chasm 
 wherein he had first awakened to life, it was with a 
 feeling of shuddering repulsion. The place bore such 
 a close resemblance now to that other cave; yet here, 
 at any rate, he knew there was nothing. 
 
 He opened the corn baskets and the calabash of 
 amasi, and made a fairly good meal. Then, by the 
 glooming shades of the overhanging rock, he judged 
 that daylight was waning. Out into the open once 
 more the open air might render such a life-and- 
 
 304 
 
THE HORROR. 
 
 death struggle with the monster a trifle less horrible 
 than here, shut in by these tomb-like rock walls. 
 
 The gray of the brief twilight was upon the faces of 
 the surrounding cliffs, which soon faded into misty 
 gloom. Only the stars, leaping into the misty gloom 
 only the stars, leaping forth into the inky sky, shed 
 an indistinct light into this vault of horror and of 
 death. He was shut in here and shut in with this 
 awful thing which should find him out during the 
 hours of darkness. And, marvellous to tell, a sud- 
 den drowsiness came upon him and whether the 
 effects of the drug still lingered about him, or was it 
 the reaction from an overstrained mind? he actually 
 slept slept hard and dreamlessly. 
 
 Suddenly he awoke awoke with the weight of an 
 indefinable terror upon him. A broad moon in its 
 third quarter was sailing aloft in the heavens, flooding 
 the hollow with its ghostly light. Instinctively he 
 sprang to his feet. As he did so there came upon 
 him a resistless and shuddering fear akin to that which 
 had paralyzed him in the cave. What was it? The 
 magnetic proximity of the awful thing stealthily stalk- 
 ing him? No. The reason now lay clear. 
 
 In the moonlight he could make out, shadowy and 
 indistinct, the corpse he had found during the after- 
 noon. But, as he gazed, a change seemed to have 
 come over it. It had increased in size had more 
 than doubled its bulk. Heavens! the dark mass began 
 to move to heave and then he thought the very 
 acme of horror was reached. Not one body was 
 there, but two. Spread out over the human body was 
 that of the monster. Now he could make out almost 
 
 305 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 every detail of its hideous shape, the convulsive 
 working of the frightful tentacles as it devoured its 
 lifeless prey. He could stand it no longer. His brain 
 was bursting; he must do something. Raising his 
 voice he shouted shouted as assuredly he had never 
 shouted in his life. There was a maniacal ring in his 
 voice. He felt as though he must rush right at this 
 thing of fear. Was he really going mad? Well, it 
 began to look like it. 
 
 But the effect was prompt. The awful vampire, 
 gathering its horrible legs under it, sprang clear of 
 the carcass. It stood for a moment in rigid immo- 
 bility, then ere the maniacal echoes of that shout had 
 quavered into silence among the cliffs, it shoggled 
 over the ridge and was lost to view. 
 
 The night wore through somehow, and if ever 
 mortal eyes were rejoiced by the light of dawn, 
 assuredly they were those of Laurence Stanninghame, 
 as once more he found himself the sole living tenant of 
 that ghastly place of death. Yet, to what end? 
 One more dreary day in his rock prison, another night 
 of horror and the same brooding fate awaiting! 
 He could not remain awake forever. Even though 
 the sound of his voice thus unexpectedly lifted up had 
 alarmed the vampire, it would not always do so. 
 Still, with the light of the new-born day after the night 
 of terror came some medium of relief. 
 
 Once more he drew upon his provision stores. 
 While repacking them his gaze rested on the native 
 blanket with the wild idea of manufacturing therefrom 
 a cord. But to do this he needed a knife. The stuff 
 was of material too stout for tearing. 
 
 306 
 
THE HORROR. 
 
 A knife! Ha! With the thought came another. 
 It was not worth much, but it was something, and 
 with that came a hard, fierce, desperate hope. The 
 broad gold bracelet which still encircled Lutali's 
 skeleton wrist could not that be banged and flat- 
 tened into something sharp and serviceable? It was 
 hard metal, anyway. 
 
 Still the grim horror lurked within its cave still it 
 came not forth. It was waiting until another night 
 should embolden it to seize its defenceless human prey. 
 He glanced upwards. There were still from two to 
 three hours of daylight. In a very few moments he 
 had reached the skeleton of the Arab, and, snapping 
 off the bony wrist without hesitation, the bracelet was 
 within his grasp. 
 
 But as he looked around for some means of flatten- 
 ing it, there flashed in upon him another idea a 
 perfectly heaven-sent idea, grisly under ordinary cir- 
 cumstances, as it might be. The bracelet was large 
 and massive, and for it a new use suggested itself. 
 Critically examining the skeletons, he selected two 
 with the largest and strongest leg-bones. These he 
 soon wrenched off, and, running one through the gold 
 bracelet, he jammed the latter fast against the thicker 
 end binding it as tightly as he could to the bulging 
 joint with a strip torn from his clothing. With a 
 thrill of unutterable joy he realized that he was no 
 longer unarmed. He had manufactured a tolerably 
 effective mace. He swung it through the air two or 
 three times with all his force. Such a blow would 
 strike a human enemy dead ; was this thing so heavily 
 armour-plated as to be proof against a similar stroke? 
 
 307 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 With one idea came another. These bones might 
 be further utilized, they might be splintered and 
 sharpened into daggers. No sooner thought of than 
 carried out. And now the skeletons underwent the 
 most ruthless desecration. Several were wrenched 
 asunder ere he had selected half a dozen of the most 
 serviceable and these he hammered to the required 
 size with his newly constructed mace sharpening 
 them on the rough face of the rock. And then, as 
 with a glow of satisfaction he sat down to rest and 
 contemplate his handiwork he almost laughed over 
 the grim whimsicality of it. Did ever mortal man go 
 into close conflict armed in such fashion he wondered 
 with club and dagger manufactured out of the bones 
 of men? 
 
 Should he take the bull by the horns, and advance 
 boldly to attack the monster in its own den? He 
 shrank from this. The gloom of the cavern invested 
 the thing with an additional element of terror, besides 
 the more practical consideration that a confined space 
 might hinder him in the use of his bizarre and im- 
 promptu weapons. He would need all the freedom 
 of hand and eye. Once more he took out the metal 
 box, and fed his eyes long and earnestly upon its con- 
 tents. The Sign of the Spider! Was there indeed 
 an influence about this trinket or rather, the love 
 which had hallowed it which was potent to stand 
 between him and peril in the direst extremity, even as 
 it had stepped between him and certain death at the 
 spears of the victorious Ba-gcatya? Slightly im- 
 proved as was his helpless condition, yet he could not 
 hope. Even if he succeeded in slaying the monster, 
 
 308 
 
THE HORROR. 
 
 how should he escape from this death-trap, this rock- 
 prison? The second day closed. 
 
 How many hours of darkness should precede moon- 
 rise he could but feebly guess. Grasping his 
 strangely fashioned club in his right hand, and the 
 strongest and sharpest of his bone daggers in the left 
 he stood, his back to the rock wall, so as not to be 
 taken in the rear; never relaxing for a moment in 
 vigilance, his ears strained to their utmost tension, 
 his eyeballs striving to pierce the black gloom. More 
 than once a sound as of stealthy, ghostly scrapings 
 caused his heart to beat like a hammer; and he seemed 
 to see the horrible eyes of the monster flaming luridly 
 out of the darkness ; but still the silent hours went by, 
 unbroken by any disturbance. 
 
 Ha! The gloom of the hollow was lightening 
 and soon the rim of the great moon peeped over the 
 cliff behind him. But his attention was rivetted now 
 upon something before him a something, huge and 
 black and shadowy which moved. The horror was 
 coming over the ridge. 
 
 It came, running stealthily a few yards, then 
 halting, then running again. It passed the body of 
 its last victim, and came running on. Laurence stood 
 transfixed, spellbound, with loathing and repulsion, 
 as he gazed upon the huge hairy legs, listening to 
 the scraping patter of the claw-armed extremities. 
 But he had no doubt now as to its intentions; it was 
 coming straight for him. 
 
 It stopped within a bare forty yards, and now as 
 for the first time, he got a clear view of it in the bright 
 moonlight, Laurence felt his heart fail him for the very 
 
 309 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 hideousness of the beast. It had the head of a devil, 
 the body and legs of a spider, and the black hairy 
 coat of a bear; and, indeed, it was nearly as large as 
 a fair-sized specimen of the latter. No, it was no 
 ordinary thing, this fearsome monster. 
 
 It advanced a little nearer, stopped again, then 
 rushed straight at him. 
 
 Laurence stepped aside just in time to ay,oid the 
 open jaws, but too late entirely to escape the great 
 flail-like tentacle, which swept him from his feet, right 
 under the horror, pinioning for a moment his arms. 
 Then, by a tremendous effort, he threw himself partly 
 upwards. The horrible nippers descended but miss- 
 ing his throat descended to his chest, and met there, 
 with a metallic, crunching sound. 
 
 Yet he was unharmed. Even in that unspeakably 
 awful moment crushed in the wreathings of the huge 
 tentacles the frightful head and devilish eyes of the 
 vampire within two feet of his own he realized what 
 had happened. Instead of penetrating his body, the 
 nippers of the monster had struck upon the metal box. 
 The thought nerved him. Wrenching his arm partly 
 free beneath the horror, he sought a joint in the horny 
 armour, and drove the bone dagger into its body 
 drove it into the very butt. 
 
 Throwing up its head convulsively, the fearful 
 creature began to spin round and round, and its 
 would-be victim realized somewhat of its enormous 
 muscular strength, for wiry and in hard training as 
 he was, he was dragged with it, rolled over and over 
 in the wreathings of the black, hairy tentacles. Was 
 
 310 
 
THE HORROR. 
 
 he being dragged off to its den? The very terror of 
 the thought nerved him once more revived his fast- 
 failing strength. Drawing forth another of his bone 
 daggers, he plunged it, too, deep into the body of the 
 beast. 
 
 For a moment the sinewy, struggling tentacles 
 relaxed, and just that moment the man was able to 
 seize, or he had been lost. With a violent effort he 
 flung himself free, and, having once more gained his 
 feet, his breath coming in hard, panting gasps, 
 stood awaiting the next attack. 
 
 Thus they stood, a strange group indeed, in the 
 brilliant moonlight: The man, his rudely constructed 
 mace uplifted, his head bent forward, a lurid glow in 
 his eyes the glow of the fell fury of desperation; the 
 hideous spider-devil swaying itself on its horrible 
 tentacles as though for another spring upon its in- 
 tended victim. Ha! it was coming! 
 
 The man stood ready, a tightening of the muscles 
 of the arm that held the club, a lowering of the brows. 
 On the part of the demon, a spasmodic contraction. 
 Again it came at him. 
 
 Half rearing itself from the ground, its feelers wav- 
 ing in the air on a level with his face, propelling itself 
 slowly forward, as though to make sure of its final 
 rush, emitting the while a kind of soft breathing hiss. 
 The aspect of the creature was so truly fearful, that 
 the man, gazing upon it, was conscious of a kind of 
 blasting influence stealing over him, beginning to 
 paralyze nerve and effort alike a feeling that it was 
 useless to continue the struggle. The metal box 
 
 3" 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 could not save him twice. Yet, through all, was the 
 certainty that to lose nerve for one moment was to 
 lose life. 
 
 His will-power triumphed. He knew that did he 
 once again get within grip of those ghastly tentacles 
 he would never emerge alive. He swung up his im- 
 provised mace; the creature was now within twelve 
 yards of him. He hurled the club; with terrific force 
 it cleft the air, the massive band of gold which con- 
 stituted its head lighting full upon one of the demon's 
 eyes. For one moment the horror contracted into a 
 heaving, writhing heap, frightful to behold, then, 
 throwing out its grisly tentacles, it spun round and 
 round as it had done before. The man's heart was 
 beating as though it would burst. Was the thing 
 slain, or in its vampire tenacity of life would it renew 
 the combat? Ha! was it coming again? Was it? 
 One moment of the most unutterable suspense, and 
 then and then the fearful thing drew back, turned 
 round, and shoggled away in the direction whence it 
 had come. It was worsted. 
 
 Save for a few scratches, Laurence was unhurt. He 
 had almost miraculously escaped the creature's nip- 
 pers. Yet now that he had won his hard-fought vic- 
 tory, a sort of rage took possession of him, an impulse 
 to follow it up, to destroy this fell horror utterly. 
 Growling a savage curse, he started in pursuit of the 
 retreating monster, but hardly had he taken two steps 
 forward than there floated to his ear a sound a voice 
 which seemed to fall from the sky itself. He stopped 
 short in his tracks and stood immovable, statuesque, 
 listening. 
 
 312 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 " ONLY A SAVAGE!" 
 
 "NYONYOBA!" 
 
 Clear, distinct, the name sounded, floating down 
 from above. 
 
 "What the devil is that?" was the characteristic 
 exclamation that burst from Laurence and there was 
 something of a quaver in the tone. For his nerves 
 were quite overstrung, and no manifestation of things 
 unknown would have surprised him now. 
 
 " Nyonyoba! Ho, Nyonyoba!" again called the 
 voice in soft, rich Zulu tones, low but penetrating. 
 " Move now some thirty paces to where the cliff juts. 
 There is that by which you may return to earth again 
 and the Spider may go hungry." 
 
 " The Spider has got enough to fill him up for some 
 long time," answered Laurence, with excusable pride. 
 " But who speaks? The voice is like that of Lin- 
 dela." 
 
 " It is that of Lindela," came the soft-toned reply. 
 " Climb now, and tarry not. I see the Spider. Climb 
 before it is too late." 
 
 With all his elation, now that the first flush of 
 victory was over, Laurence could not recall without 
 a shiver the grasp of those horrible tentacles, the fiend- 
 like glare of that dreadful face. He vastly preferred 
 flight to renewed fight, now. 
 
 313 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 Following the voice, he came to the point indicated. 
 A rope of twisted raw-hide thong lay against the 
 rock. His heart leaped within him. Soon he would 
 be free from this fearful place. The cliff here formed 
 a projecting angle, all jagged like the teeth of a saw. 
 He remembered noticing this, remembered balancing 
 its capabilities of forming a natural ladder. He had 
 even climbed a few steps, and then had been forced 
 to own that it was impracticable. Now, however, 
 with the aid of the raw-hide rope, the thing could be 
 done done with comparative ease. 
 
 As a preliminary he stepped back, and, gazing up- 
 wards, went over the climb in his mind, carefully 
 noting every step, every handhold. The cliff was 
 terrace here, and the nearest resting-place, whence, 
 indeed, the rope hung, he estimated to be about sixty 
 feet. Without this aid, however, it might as well have 
 been sixty hundred. 
 
 Seizing the rope he began his ascent, the mace and 
 the remainder of his bone daggers still slung around 
 him. The task was more difficult than it looked. 
 Contact, often sudden and violent, with the rock face 
 bruised his knuckles, inflicting excruciating pain, once 
 indeed so as to turn him sick and faint. But a glance 
 down into the grisly hollow, as he hung thus sus- 
 pended by a thread the glint of the white skeletons 
 in the moonlight, and, above all, the vague, shadowy 
 outline, black and frightful, of the horror, which still 
 lingered outside its den, as though meditating return 
 nerved him once more. What if he were to fall, 
 maimed, battered, helpless would not the frightful 
 thing hold him entirely at its mercy, and return and 
 
 314 
 
"ONLY A SAVAGE!" 
 
 drain his life-blood at its pleasure? Summoning all his 
 will-power, all his strength, he resumed his climb, and 
 soon a firm, resolute hand, grasping his, drew him up 
 for the time being into safety; for they were on a 
 ledge. 
 
 " Rest now, beloved," said the chief's daughter 
 softly, as she turned to draw up the rope. " I have 
 saved thee so far." 
 
 " But to what end, Lindela? Did you not fling a 
 stick at me, and strike me hard? See, I am bruised 
 with it yet. It has even hindered my climbing powers. 
 That is a strange way of showing love." 
 
 " But is this a stranger way? " said the girl sadly, 
 displaying the rope she had just drawn up. " See 
 now. They suspected me, as it was. Had I not 
 shown myself the first and the fiercest to turn against 
 you, should I have been here now? But come, we are 
 not yet in safety. When we are it will be time enough 
 for talk, and for love." 
 
 She led the way to a steep, narrow cranny. Up 
 this they climbed some fifty feet without difficulty, 
 emerging upon another terrace. Here another rope 
 hung from the cliff above, about the same height. 
 
 " Go first, Nyonyoba, while I hold the rope to 
 steady it," said the girl. " Then, too, if your strength 
 should give way, perhaps I may catch you and break 
 your fall. I am as strong as any of the women of the 
 Ba-gcatya and that is saying much." 
 
 For answer, Laurence uttered a derisive laugh. 
 But there must have been that in its tone which 
 pleased the chief's daughter, for she repeated the 
 request, more softly, more entreatingly, 
 
 315 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 " See now, Lindela," he answered, placing a hand 
 on each of the shapely shoulders, which glistened 
 light bronze in the moonlight. " You don't know me 
 yet if you think I will leave the/ post of danger to you. 
 Obey me instantly. Go first up that rope, or I return 
 and do combat once more with the Spider." 
 
 " Once more? Have you then actually fought 
 with that with that which is down there?" And 
 her eyes were round with amazement. 
 
 " I have, and the thing has two of these sticking in 
 it to their full length," showing the bone daggers. 
 " I have a recollection, too, of smiting hard with this 
 noble knob-stick, but it was like smiting the hardest 
 kind of tortoise shell. Not yet, however, is the time 
 to talk. Go first, Lindela go first." 
 
 She obeyed him now without further demur, and 
 soon he had joined her, for this climb was neither so 
 long nor so difficult as the first. 
 
 Laurence now saw that they were high up on a 
 mountain top. Great peaks, some snow-capped, 
 towered aloft and far away beneath stretched a 
 billowy expanse of country, dim, misty in the moon- 
 light. The air was keen and chill, and with something 
 of a shiver Lindela resumed her light upper covering, 
 which she had laid aside in order to give full freedom 
 to body and limbs. 
 
 " And you have met and fought with that," she 
 began, pointing downwards, " and are still alive? 
 Why, Nyonyoba, you have done that which no man 
 has ever done before. How did you do it? With 
 the bones of dead men? Ha! you are indeed great, 
 Nyonyoba, great indeed. Yet what a thought ! " 
 
 310 
 
"ONLY A SAVAGE!" 
 
 " A good thought truly. Still, had it occurred to 
 those who went before me they might have done the 
 same. Yet not for there was another force that 
 saved me which they lacked." 
 
 "Ha! another force?" 
 
 " Yes, the Sign of the Spider. The Spider itself was 
 powerless against that." 
 
 He drew forth the metal box, and for the first time 
 examined it. By the light of the moon he could dis- 
 cern two slight dents; one upon the border of the 
 quaint sprawling initials, where the nippers of the 
 monster had struck. For the moment he forgot 
 Lindela, forgot the surroundings, forgot where he 
 was, remembering only Lilith. Three times had 
 Lilith's love interposed between him and certain death 
 three times most unequivocally. And this third 
 time, from what unutterably horrible form of death! 
 Those poisoned fangs. The very thought made him 
 shudder. 
 
 " You are cold, beloved. See, here are coverings. 
 I have thought of everything." 
 
 The voice, the touch upon his arm, recalled him to 
 himself. If the love of the one woman had stood 
 between him and death no less had that of the other 
 borne its part. And this other now stood before him, 
 soft-eyed, pleading; grand in her statuesque and 
 perfect proportions, in her splendid strength and 
 courage that strength and courage which had nerved 
 her to set aside the most awesome traditions of her 
 race, to brave its gloomy superstitions, to venture 
 alone and unaided into the haunt of mysterious terror, 
 for love of this stranger and alien. This, too, was the 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 sublimity of love in all of its indomitable quenchless- 
 ness. And she who gave so freely, who gave all, 
 indeed, of this rich, this inestimable gift was only 
 a savage! 
 
 Only a savage! It is probable that some of the 
 most golden-lined, well-nigh divine phases of mind 
 that ever had dawned upon him in his life were shed 
 over Laurence Stanninghame then, as he stood upon 
 that lofty mountain top at midnight in the flooding 
 light of the moon, his gaze meeting the sweet respon- 
 sive one from the wide opened eyes of this savage. 
 
 " Say, Nyonyoba!" and the voice was full and 
 rich, " say, Nyonyoba, what will you give me if I 
 show you that which will delight your eyes? Will you 
 love me very much very much?" and the soft 
 musical Zulu word Ka-kulu thus repeated was as a 
 caress in itself. " Well then, come." 
 
 She led the way a few yards, then halted. A bundle 
 lay upon the ground, and this Lindela proceeded to 
 undo. It consisted of a couple of strong native 
 blankets, inclosing several round baskets of woven 
 grass similar to those which had contained the food 
 which had been let down in cruel mercy into the place 
 of the horror by the mysterious hands which had 
 lowered himself. But that upon which Laurence's 
 eyes rested, upon which he almost pounced, was a 
 short carbine and a well-stocked cartridge-belt. It 
 was a vastly inferior weapon to his own trusty " Ex- 
 press," but still it was a firearm. 
 
 " That is not all," cried the girl, laughing gleefully. 
 " See this." 
 
 She thrust another bundle into his hands. Almost 
 318 
 
"ONLY A SAVAGE!" 
 
 trembling he opened it. A revolver his own; also 
 another of smaller calibre. And with both was a 
 quantity of ammunition. As he seized these, he 
 realized that he would have given half his diamonds, 
 up till then well-nigh forgotten, for just such an 
 armoury. Now he felt equal to anything, to anybody. 
 He was once more the dominant animal, an armed 
 man nay, more a well-armed man. 
 
 "Ha! now you are once more as you ought to 
 be," cried Lindela, gleefully clapping her hands to- 
 gether. " You who are stronger than that which is 
 down there," falling into the Zulu custom of refraining 
 directly to mention that which is held in awe. " With- 
 out weapons. What are you now with them? Great 
 great! To defeat the Spider armed only with the 
 bones of men. Whan! That was great indeed 
 magnificent! " 
 
 " Yet I think I will silence forever that horror," 
 said Laurence, stepping to the brink of the cliff and 
 peering down into the awful hollow. " Yes, there the 
 beast is; I will risk a long shot," and he sighted the 
 carbine. 
 
 But in a moment Lindela's arms were around him, 
 pinioning his to his sides. 
 
 " Not so, beloved," she whispered earnestly. " Not 
 so; the Black Ones who wait on the Spider frequently 
 come to look down into his haunt, even when they do 
 not bring offerings of men. If they find him slain 
 they will know you have escaped, and will pursue; 
 for which reason it is well well, indeed, that you did 
 not quite slay him with those marvellous weapons, 
 the bones of men, Further, they might hear the 
 
 3*9 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 sound of the fire-weapon, and know where to find us. 
 Come, we have far to travel." 
 
 This was unanswerable. Laurence stood for a few 
 moments gazing down into the fearsome place which 
 held this shuddering mystery. Was it real? Was he 
 dreaming? Were those hours of terror and despair 
 spent down there but some gigantic nightmare? He 
 passed his hand over his eyes then looked again. 
 The thing was real. But now he could no longer see 
 the horrid shape black and grisly. The creature 
 must have withdrawn into its ghastly den to die. 
 The wounds which he had inflicted upon it were 
 surely too deep, too strongly dealt, to be aught but 
 mortal. The Spider would no more drink the blood 
 feed on the flesh of men. Then he turned to follow 
 Lindela. 
 
 The latter had already loaded herself with the bundle 
 of wraps and provisions. To his suggestion that they 
 should, at any rate, halve the load, Lindela laughed in 
 scorn. 
 
 " A man's work is to carry his weapons, and, when 
 needed, use them," she answered. " To bear loads 
 and this is a light one indeed is woman's work not 
 work for one who has proved too great even for the 
 Spider." 
 
 Then, as they travelled down the mountain side in 
 the fresh cool night air, she told him of all that had 
 befallen since he had been hauled to his mysterious and 
 awful doom. The thoughtless act of Holmes had 
 necessitated the destruction of Nondwana's kraal there 
 and then; and, indeed, the king's brother was more 
 than dissatisfied with the clemency extended to the 
 
 320 
 
"ONLY A SAVAGE!" 
 
 other two white men. But the word of Tyisandhlu, 
 once given, stood. They had been sent out of the 
 country under a strong armed escort, which was under 
 orders to conduct them to the great town of an Arab 
 chief, with whom El Khanac had blood brotherhood. 
 How had she found out the mystery of the Spider? 
 Was it known to all the nation? It was known to very 
 few, she explained. The Black ones who waited 
 upon the Spider were a mysterious order so mys- 
 terious, indeed, that none knew exactly who were 
 members of it and who were not. Nor could she tell 
 how the strange and gruesome cult first originated, 
 save that it was dimly whispered that the Ba-gcatya 
 had taken it over from the nation they had driven 
 out, and that in accordance with an ancient prophecy 
 uttered by a famous magician at the time of their 
 flight from Zululand. But as she told of her resolve 
 to rescue him at all risks, even so long ago as when, 
 by overhearing her father's talk, she learned that this 
 doom was to be his in any case, Laurence felt himself 
 grow strangely soft towards her. Savage or not, 
 Nondwana's daughter was a splendid character in the 
 whole-hearted devotion of her love ; heroic was hardly 
 the word for it. And as she went on to tell how she 
 had devoted herself entirely to finding out the locality 
 of the dreaded spot, learning the way to it by stealth- 
 ily following on the footsteps of that grim order when 
 it was actually engaged in conveying thither another 
 human victim, risking her life at every step, and not 
 her life merely, but incurring the certainty of the same 
 fearful doom in the event of discovery, telling it, 
 too, in the most simple way, and as though the act 
 
 321 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 were the most natural thing in the world, Laurence 
 realized that he might have done worse than throw in 
 his lot with this loftily descended daughter of a splen- 
 did race of kingly barbarians, had circumstances been 
 ordered otherwise. 
 
 But even while thus listening, while thus thinking, 
 another vein of thought was running parallel in his 
 mind. Those insignificant-looking stones, which he 
 had picked up down there, represented wealth ample 
 wealth; and with it had come a feverish longing to 
 enjoy the comforts, the pleasures, the delights which 
 civilization afforded to those who possessed it. Yet, 
 his entering upon such enjoyment, if it were ever 
 effected, as at that moment it seemed in a fair way 
 to be, he owed to Lindela. What was to become of 
 her, for she could never return to her nation? She 
 had thrown away everything, this high-born daugh- 
 ter of a race of kings ; had risked her life daily, to save 
 the life of a stranger and that for love. Yes, that 
 was love indeed! he thought. She was a brown- 
 skinned savage, but she was a splendid woman with 
 mind and character as noble as her own magnificent 
 physique. She would be a delightful, a perfect com- 
 panion during those wild, free forest marches day 
 after day, night after night, fraught with peril and 
 hardship at every step, but how would civilization 
 affect her? Would it not ruin that grand character, 
 even as it had ruined really noble natures before her, 
 for there is such a thing as the " noble savage," 
 although we grant the product to be a scarce one. 
 And with all this was entwined the thought of Lilith 
 Ormskirk. 
 
 322 
 
"ONLY A SAVAGE!" 
 
 Well, sufficient for the day is the evil thereof, had 
 always been his guiding maxim, and for the present, 
 as he took his way down the mountain side the great 
 crags rising higher and higher to the moon, the black 
 billowy roll of the forest country drawing nearer and 
 nearer, the voices of the wild creatures of the waste, 
 raised weird and ravening on the night, the thunder- 
 ous boom of the voice of the forest king ever and anon 
 dominating all others Laurence felt conscious of a 
 wild, exhilarating sense of freedom. There was music 
 in these sounds after the ghastly, awed silence of the 
 horrible place from which he had been delivered. 
 And, was it due on his part to the frame of mind of the 
 hardened adventurer, trained to take things as they 
 come, the good with the ill but never, during the 
 days and weeks that followed, did the daughter of the 
 line of the Ba-gcatya kings feel moved to any qualm 
 of regret over the sacrifice of name and home and 
 country which she had made for this man's sake. 
 
 323 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 " A DEEP A SOLITARY GRAVE." 
 
 THEY were now on the other slope of the great 
 mountain chain which shut in the Ba-gcatya country 
 on that side, and, judging by the landmarks, it seemed 
 to Laurence that the surroundings wore an aspect not 
 absolutely unfamiliar, and that they could not be far 
 out of the way by which he had been brought in a 
 captive. There was the same broad belt of desolate 
 land which took many days to traverse a land of 
 gloomy forest and sluggish river, reed-fringed, croco- 
 dile-haunted ; and night after night they would build 
 their camp-fire, resting secure in the red circle of its 
 cheery flame while the howling of ravening beasts 
 kept up dismal chorus in the outer darkness beyond. 
 It was a primeval idyll, the wandering of these two 
 the man, the product of the highest fin-de-siecle civili- 
 zation; the woman, the daughter of a savage race. 
 Yet in such wandering, savage and civilized were 
 curiously near akin. They were free as air untram- 
 melled by any conventionality or artificial needs. The 
 land furnished ample subsistence, animal and vege- 
 table. The wild game which supplied them with food 
 could not have been more free. 
 
 " Would you rather have been rescued some other 
 way, Nyonyoba? " said the girl one evening, as they 
 were sitting by the camp-fire. 
 
 324 
 
"A DEEP A SOLITARY GRAVE. 
 
 " No. There is no other way I should have pre- 
 ferred. See now, Lindela. What if we were to re- 
 turn to your people? Surely they would believe now 
 in the Sign of the Spider and that the conqueror is 
 greater than the conquered? " 
 
 " Not so," she answered, and her eyes, which had 
 brightened at the first words of his reply, became 
 clouded and sad. " They would put us to death now 
 both of us. But were it otherwise would you 
 really desire to return?" 
 
 " One might do worse. I don't know that the 
 blessings of civilization are such blessings after all, 
 which to you is a riddle." 
 
 He relapsed into silence and thought. There were 
 times when, with the riches upon him, he was con- 
 sumed with a perfectly feverish longing to return to 
 civilization. There were other times, again, when he 
 looked back with more than a lingering regret to the 
 pleasant land of the Ba-gcatya. Furthermore, Lindela 
 had entwined herself around his heart more than he 
 knew. Not an atom of the intrepidity of devotion 
 she had displayed in order to compass his final rescue 
 was thrown away upon him any more than her de- 
 portment since. Through the toilsomeness and peril 
 of their journeying no word of complaint or de- 
 spondency escaped her. She was always sunny- 
 natured, cheerful, self-sacrificing, resourceful in 
 short, a delightful companion. Yet she was a 
 savage, he thought, with a curl of the lip, as before 
 his mind's eye arose the contrast between her and her 
 civilized sisters, with their artificiality and moods 
 and caprices, and petty spites and fictitious ailments, 
 
 325 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 and general contentiousness all around. It was by 
 no means certain he would not have returned to dwell 
 with her among her own people, had that course been 
 open but it was not. Only the return to civilization 
 lay before him; and what to do with Lindela for 
 he had not the slightest desire to part with her. 
 
 Meanwhile they had reached the perilous phase of 
 their wanderings. Ruins of multitudinous villages lay 
 in their path at every turn, but, what was worse, signs 
 of human occupation began to show once more, and 
 human occupation meant hostile occupation. It was 
 fortunate that the land had been doubly raided by 
 the slave-hunters and the Ba-gcatya because in its 
 depopulation lay their safety. But those who had 
 escaped would not be likely to view with any friendly 
 glance a representative of each despoiling factor, as 
 exemplified in these two. So they avoided villages, 
 which was easy enough by careful observation ahead. 
 What was less easy, however, was to avoid wandering 
 parties. 
 
 Nor was it always practicable. Once they came 
 right into such a horde near enough, that is, for their 
 presence to be discovered, and for a whole day were 
 they stealthily followed, their pursuers only drawing 
 off owing to nightfall and the proximity of other tribes 
 hostile to themselves. Another time they nearly 
 walked into the midst of an encampment while a can- 
 nibal feast was in progress. At sight of the human 
 limbs hung up, the filed teeth and tattooed faces of 
 these savages tearing at their horrible repast, Lindela 
 shuddered with repulsion and anger. 
 
 " See there, Nyonyoba," she said, when they had 
 326 
 
"A DEEP A SOLITARY GRAVE." 
 
 withdrawn beyond hearing, " do not the Ba-gcatya 
 act rightly in stamping out these foul Izima who de- 
 vour the flesh of their own kindred, like wild dogs? " 
 
 " I think so. And we, who capture them to sell 
 them, do we not send them to a better fate, where they 
 can no more indulge in such repellent appetites? " 
 And this she did not attempt to gainsay. 
 
 For months they journeyed on thus, peril their com- 
 panion 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 dis- 
 gusted 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, 
 
 327 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 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 thought- 
 fully, 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 Lau- 
 rence with concern. He himself was inured to it, 
 but this daughter of a healthy upland race, accus- 
 tomed to the breezy, equable climate of her mountain 
 home on her the steaming heat of the rotting vege- 
 tation 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 
 
 328 
 
"A DEEP A SOLITARY GRAVE." 
 
 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 breath- 
 ing 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. \Vhy 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 fan- 
 ning 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. 
 
 329 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 " 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 
 
 330 
 
"A DEEP A SOLITARY GRAVE." 
 
 pain now, and I die in your arms. Surely my itongo* 
 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 in- 
 audible, 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 eye- 
 lids 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. Lin- 
 dela 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 ad- 
 vanced towards the sound. 
 
 * Tutelary spirit. 
 331 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 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 ven- 
 geance 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 1 a deep, 
 secure grave a solitary grave in the heart of the un- 
 
 332 
 
"A DEEP A SOLITARY GRAVE." 
 
 trodden 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. 
 
 333 
 
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 re- 
 turn, 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, some- 
 thing 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 re- 
 turned without Hazon. 
 
 " Bless my soul, Stanninghame, is that you? " cried 
 Rankin, running right into Laurence one morning 
 
 334 
 
"GOOD-BYEMY IDEAL!" 
 
 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 be- 
 fore 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? W 7 ell, 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, how- 
 ever, 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 ex- 
 
 335 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 changed, " 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, Stan- 
 ninghame. 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 cer- 
 tain 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 
 
 336 
 
" GOOD-BYE MY IDEAL!" 
 
 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 to- 
 gether 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 con- 
 337 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 cern, 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 for- 
 gets 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 with- 
 out 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 alto- 
 gether 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. 
 338 
 
"GOOD-BYE MY IDEAL!" 
 
 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 aveng- 
 ing 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 
 
 339 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 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 com- 
 parison 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 some- 
 thing, for all he told himself to the contrary. Per- 
 haps 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 remain- 
 ing 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 
 
 340 
 
"GOOD-BYE MY IDEAL!" 
 
 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 some- 
 body's toes. A little cry of mingled pain and resent- 
 ment, 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 un- 
 
 341 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 steadily 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 Johannes- 
 burg 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 Alnzvick Castle." 
 
 "Oh! By the Alnwick Castle?" she repeated 
 again and in the catch in her voice, and the quick- 
 ness 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 un- 
 sparing 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 
 
 342 
 
"GOOD-BYE MY IDEAL!" 
 
 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 your- 
 self." 
 
 " Were you angry with me when you heard what 
 
 343 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 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, Lau- 
 rence?" 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. 
 
 " Yes. An excellent copybook maxim, but for all 
 purposes of real life bosh. Am I not in my own 
 person a living instance to that effect? As soon as 
 I pitched ' duty ' to the dogs, why then, and only 
 then, did I begin to travel in the contrary direction 
 to those sagacious animals myself which, of course, 
 is simply appalling morality, but it's life. Well, 
 child, make the best of your life, and prove a shining 
 exception to fne dismal rule." 
 
 " Do you remember our talk on board the dear old 
 Persian? Yes, we had so many, you were going to 
 say; but I mean our first one, the first serious one 
 that night, leaning over the side, I asked you : ' Shall 
 I make a success of life?' Do you remember your 
 answer? " 
 
 " As well as though it were yesterday. I replied 
 344 
 
" GOOD-BYE MY IDEAL ! " 
 
 that the chances were pretty even, inclining, if any- 
 thing, to the negative. Well, and was I right? " 
 
 Lilith turned away her head. He could see that 
 the tears were not far away. Her lips were quivering. 
 
 " I likewise told you you were groping after an 
 ideal," he went on. 
 
 " And I found it. Perhaps I had already found it 
 when I asked the question. Oh, Laurence, life is all 
 wrong, all horribly wrong and out of joint," she burst 
 forth, with a passionate catch in her voice, as she 
 turned and faced him once more. 
 
 " Yes, I know it is. I came to that conclusion a 
 goodish while ago, and have never seen any reason 
 since to doubt its absolute accuracy." 
 
 "All out of joint!" she repeated hopelessly. "It 
 is as if our lives had been placed opposite each other 
 on parallel lines, and then one of the lines had been 
 moved. Then our lives lay apart forever." 
 
 " That's about it." 
 
 She was not deceived. His tone was hard; to all 
 appearances indifferent. Yet not to her ear did it so 
 ring. She knew the immensity of effort that kept 
 it and what lay behind it under control. Then she 
 broke down entirely. 
 
 "Laurence, my love my doubly lost love!" she 
 uttered through a choking whirlwind of sobs. 
 " Teach me some of your strength some of your 
 hardness. Then, perhaps, I can bear things better." 
 
 " A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, re- 
 member, and perhaps you have shown me the weak 
 link here that of my ' hardness/ Child, I would 
 not teach you an iota of it, if I could. It is good for 
 
 345 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 me, but no woman was ever the better for it yet. But 
 keep yourself in hand now. We are in a public place, 
 although a comparatively secluded one. For your 
 own sake, do not give way. And for the very reason 
 that I feared to stir up old memories, I had intended 
 to go through without attempting to see you once 
 more. Tell me one thing would it have been better 
 had I done so?" 
 
 " Better had you done so? No no. A thousand 
 times no Laurence, my darling. I shall treasure up 
 this last hour we have spent together shall treasure 
 it as the sweetest of memories as long as life shall 
 last." 
 
 "And I shall treasure up that reply. Listen! 
 Twice has your love stood between me and death, 
 as I have told you. Yet of the third time I have 
 never told you. It was the day I decided to go up- 
 country. I had done with life. The pistol was 
 pressed hard against my forehead. I was gradually 
 trying how much more pressure the trigger would 
 bear. A hair's breadth would have done it. Then it 
 seemed that your voice was in my ear. Your form 
 stood before me. I tell you, Lilith, you saved me 
 that day as surely as though you had actually been 
 within the room. I put the pistol down." 
 
 "I did this?" wonderingly. "Why, that must 
 have been the day I had that awful dream." 
 
 " It was. Hazon came in just after, and we made 
 our plans for the expedition. I remember telling you 
 of it that same afternoon." 
 
 " Why, then, if this is so, it must have been with 
 some great purpose," she cried, brightening up, a 
 
 346 
 
" GOOD-BYE MY IDEAL!" 
 
 strange, wistful smile illumining her face. " Oh, how 
 glad I am you have told me this, for now I can see 
 comfort strength. In some mysterious way it seems 
 as if our two lives were intertwined, that it would 
 ever be in my power in some dim way to watch over 
 yours. My darling, my darling until this moment I 
 had not the strength to part with you now I have. 
 Let me do so before it leaves me, for we have been 
 here a very long time. I would have seen you off 
 on board, but that I dare not. I simply lack the 
 strength of will to bear that, Laurence, my dear one. 
 We had better say good-bye here not in the crowded 
 street. Then I will go alone." 
 
 Both had risen, and were holding each others 
 hands, were gazing into each other's eyes. Thus 
 they stood for a moment. Nobody was in sight. 
 Lilith lifted her lips, and they moved in a barely 
 audible murmur. 
 
 " Good-bye, my ideal!" 
 
 One long, close, farewell kiss, and she was gone. 
 And the man, as he flung himself back on the garden 
 seat, with his eyes fixed dreamily on the jutting end 
 of the massive rock wall of Table Mountain towering 
 on high to the cloudless blue, realized at that moment 
 no elation such as one might feel who had found con- 
 siderable wealth, and was returning full of hard, firm 
 health to enjoy the same. More than ever at that 
 moment did life seem to him all out of joint more 
 than ever, if possible; for his had been one of those 
 lives which, from the cradle to the grave, never seems 
 to be anything else. 
 
 347 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 " WELL, Fay, I think that's about enough for one 
 lesson. Down you get/' 
 
 " Just once more round the park, father," was the 
 pleading rejoinder. " I'm quite beginning to feel at 
 home on Tricksie now." 
 
 Laurence gave way, and Tricksie darted off, per- 
 haps a trifle too vivaciously for a learner of the noble 
 art of horsemanship. But the girl kept her seat 
 bravely, and the conceded scamper being brought to 
 a close, she came round to where Laurence awaited, 
 and slid from her saddle. 
 
 " Father, I won't have you call it ' lessons ' any 
 more," she cried. " I can ride now; can ride do you 
 hear! " 
 
 " Oh, can you?" laughed Laurence, thinking what 
 a pretty picture she made standing there with the full 
 light of the setting sun tinting the golden waves of 
 her hair, playing upon the great dark eyes. Indeed, 
 he owned inwardly to a weakness, a soft place as 
 strange as it was unwonted, for this child of his. Yet 
 she was something more than a child now, quite a 
 tall slip of a girl at the angular age; but there was 
 nothing awkward or angular even then about Fay 
 Stanninghame. 
 
 " Well, hitch up the pony to the rail there," he went 
 348 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 on. " Those two scamps can take him in when they 
 are tired of careering around and whooping like Sioux 
 on the war-path." 
 
 The two boys, also happy in the possession of a 
 pony apiece, had lost no time either in learning to 
 ride it. 
 
 " There's no part of a fool about either of those 
 chaps," said Laurence, more to himself than to the 
 girl, as he watched the two circling at full gallop in 
 and out among the trees, absolutely devoid of fear. 
 " Let's stroll a little, Fay ; or would you rather 
 go in?" 
 
 " Of course, I wouldn't," linking her arm in his. 
 " Father, are we very rich now? " 
 
 " Oh, pretty warm. Think it fun, eh, child?" 
 
 "Fun? Why it's heavenly. This lovely place! 
 Oh, sometimes I dream that this is all a dream, and 
 then to wake up and find it real! " 
 
 " Well, dear, be as happy as you like now all day 
 and every day. You have had enough of the other 
 thing to last you a precious long time." 
 
 They strolled on through the sweet May evening 
 on beneath a great beech hanger, where cushats 
 cooed softly among the green mast, and the air 
 was musical with the sweet piping of thrushes and 
 the caw of homing rooks. Here and there a gap in 
 the hawthorn hedge disclosed a glimpse of red-tiled 
 roof and farm stack and nestling among the trees of 
 the park the chimneys of the Hall. 
 
 Laurence Stanninghame had found this place by a 
 mere chance. He might have purchased it for a third 
 of its value, but he preferred not. Possibly he dis- 
 
 349 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 trusted the wandering blood within him, possibly he 
 did not lose sight of the fact that where he had found 
 the great diamonds he had certainly left behind many 
 more, to be found or not at some future time. So he 
 rented the house and park, and extensive shooting 
 and fishing rights. No more pinching and scraping 
 now. To the children this change was, as Fay had 
 said, " heavenly." 
 
 " How do people get rich in Africa, father? " said 
 the latter, as they turned homeward. 
 
 " In various ways. They find gold mines with no 
 gold in them, and then sell shares in them to a pack 
 of idiots for a great deal of money. Or they perhaps 
 find a few diamonds themselves. Or they trade in all 
 sorts of things ivory, and so forth." 
 
 He had stopped to light a pipe; Fay, intently 
 watching his face through the clouds of smoke he 
 was puffing forth, detected a lurking quizzical expres- 
 sion in his eyes, which roused her scepticism. 
 
 " I never quite know whether you are serious or 
 not, father," she said. " But you never tell us any 
 stories about Africa." 
 
 " I've got out of practice for story-telling, little 
 one." 
 
 " But Colonel Hewett tells us plenty," naming a 
 neighbour, " and yet he hasn't been so much in 
 Africa as you have." 
 
 "Ah, he'll never get out of practice in that 
 line," returned Laurence, with the same quizzical 
 laugh. 
 
 " What a lot of adventures you must have had, 
 father," went on Fay wistfully; for this was a sore 
 
 350 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 subject both with herself and her brothers. They had 
 expected tale upon tale of hair-raising peril of lions 
 and crocodiles and snakes and fighting Zulus. But 
 woeful disappointment awaited. The last topic the 
 returned wanderer seemed to care to talk upon was 
 that of his wanderings. 
 
 Before they regained the house they were joined 
 by the two boys, happy and healthy with their recent 
 gallop, and full of the trout they were going to catch 
 on the morrow under the tuition of the keeper. Lau- 
 rence, dismissing them for a while, entered quietly by 
 a back way. The post had come in, and with it an 
 African mail letter. This he carried into his private 
 sanctum. It was from Holmes. 
 
 " I hope the fellow isn't going to make trouble," 
 he said to himself with a slight clouding of the brow. 
 " He's idiot enough to turn pious repentant, I sup- 
 pose, they would call it and give the whole thing 
 away. ' Nothing but a curse can come of it, the 
 curse of blood/ the young fool said, or words to that 
 effect. I wonder what sort of a ' curse ' it is that puts 
 one in possession of all this," looking out upon the 
 soft, peaceful English landscape, hayfield and wooded 
 hill, slumbering in the gathering dusk. " As if there 
 could be a greater curse anyhow than being con- 
 demned to go through life that most pitiable object 
 a pauper with sixteen quarterings. No no ! " 
 
 He tore open the envelope, and in the fading light 
 ran rapidly over its contents. Hazon had returned 
 to Johannesburg, and had wound up all their affairs, 
 and each of them was in possession of more than a 
 small fortune. There was nothing, however, of the 
 
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER. 
 
 remorseful or the morbid about the writer now, and, 
 turning over the page, Laurence broke into a short 
 half laugh, for there followed the announcement of 
 Holmes' engagement to Mabel Falkner of the blue 
 eyes, and the usual transports and rhapsodies attend- 
 ant upon such a communication. Skipping the bulk 
 of this, Laurence returned the missive to his pocket 
 with another sneering laugh. 
 
 " We shall hear no more about a ' curse ' on our 
 good fortune now, friend Holmes," he said to himself, 
 " for you are entering upon an institution calculated 
 to knock out all such Quixotic niceties. Ha, ha! I 
 shouldn't be in the least surprised if in a little while 
 you didn't hanker to start up-country again upon 
 another * ivory ' trade." 
 
 But Holmes' letter had, as it were, let in a waft of 
 the dark cloud of the Past upon the fair and smiling 
 peacefulness of the Present, and he fell to thinking 
 on what strange experiences had been his of the con- 
 sistent and unswerving irony of life as he had known 
 it. Every conventionality violated every rule of 
 morality, each set aside, had brought him nothing 
 but good had brought nothing but good to him and 
 his. Had he grovelled on in humdrum poverty- 
 stricken respectability, what would have befallen him 
 and them? For him the stereotyped " temporary 
 insanity " Verdict of a coroners jury for. them, well, 
 Heaven only knew. Whereas now? 
 
 At this stage an impulse moved him, and opening 
 a locked cabinet he took forth something, and as he 
 examined it the associations of the thing, and the 
 fast darkening room, brought back the vision of 
 
 352 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 glooming rock walls and a perfectly defenceless man 
 weighed down with horror and dread. 
 
 " May I come in, father? But you are in the 
 dark." 
 
 It was Fay's voice. He half started, so rapt was 
 he in his meditations. 
 
 " That's soon remedied," he said, striking a light. 
 " Yes, come in, little one. You were asking about 
 this thing once. Look at it queer sort of weapon, 
 isn't it? " 
 
 " It is, indeed," she answered. " Is it a Zulu war 
 club? Why, the head is made of brass, or is it gold? 
 And look, there is some strange writing on it." 
 
 " And the handle is a bone. Yes, the head is gold, 
 and I put the thing together when I had no other 
 weapon ay and used it, too, in the ghastliest kind 
 of fight I ever was in. Come, now, we will put it 
 away again." 
 
 " Not yet, father. Show me some more queer 
 things," she pleaded, nestling to his side. 
 
 Then he got out other trophies and curios, and Fay 
 spent a good hour of unalloyed delight turning them 
 wonderingly over, and drinking in the incident, more 
 or less stirring, which related to each. 
 
 But there was one thing he did not show her; one 
 thing upon which no eye save his own might ever 
 again rest; one thing he treasured up in the greatest 
 security under lock and key, which was enshrined 
 within his mind as a hallowed " charm," and that was 
 the metal box and its contents the " charm " which 
 twice had stood between him and death death vio- 
 lent and horrible The Sign of the Spider. 
 
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