The Sign of the Spider Part 17

"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, impa.s.sive 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 "_Ja_, 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 privation of his enterprise! Yet to what end? Even if he were successful in ama.s.sing 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 antic.i.p.atory 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 l.u.s.tre of a radiant tenderness, too vast, too overwhelming 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, whirling, heart-break of farewell,--yet as the blood surged boiling through Laurence Stanninghame's veins, and heart, pressed against heart, seemed swelled to bursting point, he thought that life, even such as it had been, was worth living if it could contain such a moment as this.

Equally, too, did he realize that, in life or in death, the triumph-joy of this moment should illumine his memory, dark though it might be, for ever and ever.

"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 morning. 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 h.e.l.l-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 longing 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 adjoining 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. 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 bitterness. "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."

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 p.r.o.nouncing 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 was 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 program of life. It is that way.

But tell me, would you have preferred that I had not done it--that I had pa.s.sed by on the other side?"

"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 recognized 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 moment 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 awesome 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 ma.s.sively forged? He remembered how they had 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 s.n.a.t.c.h him from the jaws of death. And it had so s.n.a.t.c.hed 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.

"At the twelfth hour! at the twelfth hour!" he repeated, 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 discovered that his granite nature was shaken to its foundation. But, even then, the unutterable sweetness 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 enkindle 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 lashing 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 this final parting had come, the dead, dreary, heartsick 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 pa.s.sed 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!"

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 something 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 undergrowth 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 h.o.a.ry mosses growing therefrom, do such delight to dwell.

Beautiful as this shaded solitude is with its vistas of ma.s.sive tree-trunk and sombre foliage, the latter here and there relieved by cl.u.s.ters 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, a.s.sume form, att.i.tude, countenance, in a hundred divers contortions--gnome-like, grotesque, 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 unseen 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 phantom-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 indefinable something, in sight, and sound, and surrounding, 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 s.p.a.ce, and that which this s.p.a.ce contains. Inclosed within an irregular stockade--mud-plastered, reed-thatched--stand the huts of a native village.