The Web of the Golden Spider Part 34

He thrust his body out as far as possible to see more of it. The light and the color were as balm to his eyes. But it brought back another fever; how he would like to thrust his hot head into its depths and drink, drink, drink! The idea pressed in upon him so strongly, with such insane persistence, that he felt as though if he got very near the edge and took a firm grip with his toes, he could reach the water in a jump. It was worth trying. If he took a long breath, and got just the right balance--he found himself actually crouching. He fell back from this danger, but he couldn't escape his thirst. He must find water. The dry dust had sifted into his throat--his lungs.

His thoughts now centered on nothing else but this. Water stood for everything in the world--for the world itself, because it meant life.

Water--water--nothing else could quench the fever which tore at his throat like a thing with a million sharp claws--nothing else could clear his brain--nothing else put the strength back into his legs.

Back into the cave he pressed--back into the unknown dark. The flinty sides were cool. He stopped to press his cheeks against them, then licked them with his dry tongue. Back--back away from the temptation to jump, he staggered. Another step, for all he knew, might plunge him into some dark well; but even so, it wouldn't matter much. There might be water at the bottom. Now and then he paused to listen, for it seemed to him he caught the musical tinkling of dripping water. He pictured a crystal stream such as that in which when a boy he used to fish for trout, tinkling over the clean rock surface,--a sparkling, fairy waterfall where at the bottom he might scoop up icy handfuls.

He tried to pierce the dark to where this sound seemed to be. He struck one of his precious matches. The flame which he held before him was repeated a thousand times, in a shining pool to the left. With a throaty, animal-like cry, he threw himself forward and plunged his hands into the pool. They met a cutting surface of a hundred little stones. He groped all around; nothing but these little stones. He grabbed a handful of them and struck another match. This was no pool of water--this was not a crystal spring--it was nothing but a little pile of diamonds. In a rage he flung them from him.

Jewels--jewels when he wanted water! Baubles of stone when he thirsted! Surely the G.o.ds here who guarded these vanities must be laughing. If each of these crystals had only been a drop of that crystal which gives life and surcease to burning throats,--if only these bits could resolve themselves into that precious thing which they mocked with their clearness!

Maddened by the visions these things had summoned, he staggered back to the opening. At least he must have air--big, cooling draughts of air. It was the one thing which was left to him. He would bathe in it and drink it into his hot lungs. He moved on his hands and knees with his head dropped low between them like a wounded animal. It was almost as though he had become a child once more--life had become now so elemental. Of all the things this big world furnished, he wanted now but that one thing which it furnishes in such abundance. Just water--nothing else. Water of which there were lakes full and rivers full; water which thundered by the ton over crags; water which flooded down over all the earth. And this, the freest of all things, was taken from him while that for which men cut one another's throats was flung in his face. Yes, he had become just a child once more,--a child mouthing for the breast of Nature.

When he reached the opening he dropped flat with his head over the chasm. His blurred eyes could still see one thing--the big, cool lake where the moon laughed back at herself,--the big cool lake where the water bathed the sh.o.r.es,--the big cool lake where Jo slept.

Jo--love--life--these were just below him. And behind him, within reach of his weak fingers, lay a useless half billion in precious stones. So he fought for life in the center of the web.

CHAPTER XXII

_The Taste of Rope_

Stubbs was lying flat upon his chest staring anxiously down into the fissure where Wilson had disappeared when suddenly he felt a weight upon his back and another upon each of his outstretched arms. In spite of this, he reached his knees, but the powerful brown men still clung.

He shook himself as a mad bull does at the sting of the darts. It was just as useless. In another minute he was thrown again, and in another, bound hand and foot with a stout gra.s.s rope. Without a word, as though he were a slain deer, he was lifted to their shoulders and ignominiously carted down the mountain side. It was all so quickly done that he blinked back at the sun in a daze as though awaking from some evil dream. But his uncomfortable position soon a.s.sured him that it was a reality and he settled into a sullen rage. He had been captured as easily as a drunken sailor is shanghaied.

They never paused until they lowered him like a bundle of hay within a dozen feet of where he had tethered his burros. Instantly he heard a familiar voice jabbering with his captors. In a few minutes the Priest himself stepped before him and studied him curiously as he rolled a cigarette.

"Where is the other?" he asked.

"Find him," growled Stubbs.

"Either I or the Golden One will find him,--that is certain. There is but one pa.s.s over the mountain," he added in explanation.

"Maybe. What d' ye want of us, anyway?"

The Priest flicked the ashes from his cigarette.

"What did _you_ want--by the hut yonder? Your course lay another way."

"Ain't a free man a right up there?"

"It is the shrine of the Golden One."

"It ain't marked sech."

"But you have learned--now. It is better in a strange country to learn such things before than afterwards."

"The same to you--'bout strange people."

The Priest smoked idly a few minutes longer.

"Where is the other?" he asked again.

"Ask your Golden Man."

"He knows only the dead. Shall I wait?"

"Jus' as you d.a.m.ned please," growled Stubbs.

He saw no use in trying to pacify this devil. Even if he had seen a hope, it would have gone too much against him to attempt it. He felt the same contempt for him that he would of a mutinous sailor; he was just bad,--to be beaten by force and nothing else.

The yellow teeth showed between the thin lips.

"The bearded men are like kings until--they lie prostrate like slaves."

Stubbs did not answer. His thoughts flew back to Wilson. He pictured his return to find his partner gone. Would he be able to climb out of that ill-fated hole without aid? It was possible, but if he succeeded, he might fall into worse hands. At any cost he must turn suspicion aside from that particular spot. Apparently it had as yet no especial significance, if its existence were known at all, to the natives.

"My partner," said Stubbs, deliberately, "has gone to find the girl."

"And you waited for him--up there in the sun?"

"Maybe."

"He had better have remained with you."

"There would have been some dead n.i.g.g.e.rs if he had."

"My friend," said the Priest, "before morning I shall know if you have told the truth this time. In the meanwhile I shall leave you in the company of my children. I hope you will sleep well."

"D' ye mean to keep me tied like this till morning?"

"I see no other way."

"Then d.a.m.n your eyes if----"

But he bit off the phrase and closed his eyes against the grinning face before him. As a matter of fact, he had made a discovery which brought with it a ray of hope. He found that with an effort he was able to bring his teeth against the rope where it pa.s.sed over his shoulder. His hands were tied behind his back, but with the slack he would gain after gnawing through the rope, he would be able to loosen them. They had taken his revolver, but they had overlooked the hunting knife he always carried within his shirt suspended from his neck--a precaution which had proved useful to him before. The very thing he now hoped for was that they would leave him as he was.

The Priest departed and did not appear again. The three brown men settled down on their haunches and fell into that state of Indian lethargy which they were able to maintain for days, every sense resting but still alert. With their knees drawn up to their chins they chewed their coca leaves and stared at their toes, immovable as images. Stubbs looked them over; they did not appear to be strong men.

Their arms and legs were rounded like those of women, and their chests were thin. He wondered now why he had not been able to shake them off.

Stubbs settled back to wait, but every now and then he deliberately tossed, turning from his back to his side and again to his back. He had two objects in mind; to keep the watchmen alert so that the strain would tell eventually in dulled senses, and to throw them off their guard when the time came that the movements really meant something.

But they never even looked up; never shifted their positions. Each had by his side a two-edged sword, but neither revolver nor rifle. His own Winchester still lay in the gra.s.s near the hut, if they had not stolen it.

In this way several hours pa.s.sed before he made the first move towards escape. They gave him neither water nor nourishment. So he waited until dark. Then he turned his head until his teeth rested upon the rope. He remained in this position without moving for ten minutes and then slowly, carefully began to nibble. The rope was finely knit and as tough as raw hide. At the end of a half hour he had scarcely made any impression at all upon it. At the end of an hour he had started several strands. The wiry threads irritated his lips and tongue so that they soon began to bleed, but this in turn softened the rope a trifle. The three brown men never stirred. The stars looked down impartially upon the four; also upon the girl by the lake and the man in the cave. It was all one to them.

He gnawed as steadily and as patiently as a rat. Each nibble soon became torture, but he never ceased save to toss a bit that the guards might not get suspicious. The dark soon blurred their outlines, but he had fixed their positions in his mind so that he could have reached them with his eyes shut. At the end of the third hour he had made his way half through the rope. It took him two hours more to weaken one half of the remainder. The pain was becoming unendurable. He quivered from head to foot each time he moved his jaw, for his lips were torn to the quick. His tongue was shredded; his chest damp with blood.

Finally he ceased. Then carefully, very carefully, threw back his shoulders so as to bring a strain to the rope. He felt it pull apart, and sank to rest a bit.