The Sign of the Spider Part 34

Laurence stood transfixed, spellbound, with loathing and repulsion, as he gazed upon the huge hairy legs, listening to the sc.r.a.ping 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 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 avoid 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 missing 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 h.o.r.n.y armour, and drove the bone dagger into its body--drove it into the very b.u.t.t.

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 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 intended 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 waving 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 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 improvised mace; the creature was now within twelve yards of him. He hurled the club; with terrific force it cleft the air, the ma.s.sive band of gold which const.i.tuted 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 nippers. Yet now that he had won his hard-fought victory, 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.

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 Lindela."

"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.

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 upwards, 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 suspended 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 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.

"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 n.o.ble k.n.o.b-stick, but it was like smiting the hardest kind of tortoise sh.e.l.l. 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 moonlight. 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!"

"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 discern 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 superst.i.tions, to venture alone and unaided into the haunt of mysterious terror, for love of this stranger and alien. This, too, was the sublimity of love in all of its indomitable quenchlessness. 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 responsive 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 gra.s.s 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 "Express," 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 trembling he opened it. A revolver--his own; also another of smaller calibre. And with both was a quant.i.ty 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.