The Web of the Golden Spider Part 41

With a good-natured grin Stubbs submitted and threw his tired body on the turf, making a pillow of the bags of jewels. He slept as heartily as though snug in the bunk of a safe ship. But both the girl and her father refused to take Wilson's advice and do likewise. Both insisted upon sharing his watch with him. The father sat on the other side of his daughter staring, as though still wondering, into the shadows of the silent wood kingdom about him. He spoke but little and seemed to be still trying to clear his thoughts.

At their backs rose the towering summits which still stood between them and the ocean; above those the stars which from the first had seemed to watch their lives; before them the heavy, silent shadows which bade them be ever alert.

Wilson sat upright with his rifle over his knees. The girl nestled against his shoulder. All was well with the world.

CHAPTER XXVII

_Dangerous Shadows_

In the narration of what had befallen her while in the care of Sorez, Wilson came to have a new conception of the man. With the exception of the fact that Sorez had considered his own interest alone in bringing the girl down here, and that he had lured her on by what he knew to be a deliberate lie, Sorez had been as kind and as thoughtful of her as her own father could have been. After their imprisonment in Bogova and while in hiding from Wilson he had supplied the girl with the best of nurses and physicians. Furthermore, in order to make what recompense he could to her in case of an accident to him or in the event of the failure of their mission, he had, before leaving Bogova, made his will, bequeathing to her every cent of his real and personal property.

The chief item of this was the house in Boston which he had purchased as a home for himself and niece, a few months before the latter's death. In addition to this he had in the end made the supreme sacrifice--he had given his life.

Sitting there in the starlight she told Wilson these things, with a sob in her voice.

"And so he kept his word after all--didn't he? He brought me to him."

The older man by her side looked up at her.

"My daughter," he murmured. "My daughter."

She placed her arm over his shoulder scarcely able to believe the good fortune which had at once placed her here between her father and her lover.

"The golden idol did some good after all," she whispered.

"The idol?" asked her father. "What idol?"

"You remember nothing of an image?" broke in Wilson.

"An image? An idol? I have seen them. I have seen them, but--but I can't remember where."

He spoke with a sort of childlike, apologetic whine. Wilson hesitated a moment. He had brought the idol with him after finding it in the hut where Manning had carried it from the raft--apparently unconsciously--and had taken it, fearing to leave it with Flores. He had intended to throw it away in the mountains in some inaccessible place where it could never again curse human lives. This image ought to be final proof as to whether or not Manning could recall anything of his life as a priest of the Sun G.o.d or not. If the sight of this failed to arouse his dead memory, then nothing ever could. Of all the things in this life among these mountains no one thing had ever figured so prominently or so vitally in his life as this.

About this had centered all his fanatical worship--all his power.

As Wilson rose to get the image from where he had hidden it near Stubbs, the girl seized his arm and, bending far forward, gasped:

"The shadow--did you see it?"

Wilson turned with his weapon c.o.c.ked.

"Where?" he demanded.

But underneath the trees where she had thought she saw a movement all was quiet again--all was silent. With a laugh at her fears, Wilson secured the image and brought it back. He thrust it towards Manning.

It was clearly visible in the moonlight. The girl shrank a little away from it.

"Ugh!" she shuddered. "I don't like to look at it to-night."

In the dull silver light it appeared heavier and more somber than in the firelight. It still sat cross-legged with the same cynical smile about its cruel mouth, the same b.e.s.t.i.a.l expression about the brow, the same low-burning fires in the spider-like eyes. As Wilson and her father bent over it she turned away her head. Once again she seized Wilson's arm and bade him look beyond the thicket in front of them.

"I saw something move. I am sure of it."

"You are a bit nervous, I'm afraid," he said tenderly. "If only you would lie down for the rest of the night."

"No, no, David. I am sure this time."

"Only a shadow. There is a light breeze."

"I couldn't see anything but--it didn't _feel_ like a shadow, David."

"You felt it? Has the image----" he asked a bit anxiously.

"No--oh, I can't make you understand, but I'm sure something moved in the bushes."

"Stay close to me then," he laughed quietly.

He turned back to Manning who was turning the image over and over in his hands with indifferent interest. To him it was nothing more than a curio--a metal doll. But when he caught the glint of a moonbeam on the jeweled eyes, he bent over it with keener concern. He raised it in his hands and stared steadily back into the cold eyes. This stare soon became fixed and Manning began to grow slightly rigid. Wilson s.n.a.t.c.hed the object from his hands. For a moment the man remained immovable; then he rubbed his hand over his brow, muttering incoherently to himself. This nervous symptom disappeared and Manning apparently instantly forgot the idol again. He called for his daughter. She came closer to his side and he rested his head against her shoulder.

"Dear father," she murmured affectionately.

"I--I can't think," he said.

"Don't try, Daddy. Wait until we get out of here and you are all well again."

"If I could reach my ship," he muttered.

"What ship, Daddy?"

"Why, my own--the 'Jo Manning.'"

That took her back to the time she was a very little girl. She remembered now that he had named the ship after her,--the last ship which he had sailed out of Newburyport. Poor old daddy! What a different man he was this moment from him who had held her in his arms and kissed her with tears rolling down his bronzed cheeks. It wrenched her heart to watch him sitting there so listlessly--so weakly--so little himself. The fear was growing in her heart that he never would be the same again. Almost--almost it was better to remember him as he was then than to know him as he sat there now. Had it not been for the comfort, for the joy of another order, for the safety she felt in this younger man by her side, her heart would have broken at the sight. If only she could have found him during those few days he was in Boston--when the crystals had first shown him to her--when he must have pa.s.sed within a few feet of her, it might not then have been so difficult to rouse him. But at that time he would not have known his own.

A bedlam of raucous, clamorous shrieks settling into a crude sort of war cry brought all four of them to their feet. Wilson thrust the girl back of him towards the cave-like formation behind them. This effectually protected them in the rear and partly from two sides.

Stubbs swept the bags of jewels into his arms and carried them to one corner of this natural excavation. Then he took his position by the side of Wilson and Manning, who was unarmed. The three waited the approach of the unseen demons. Not a light, not the glint of a weapon could be seen. But before their eyes, in and out among the trees making up the dense growth, shadows flitted back and forth in a sort of ghost dance. In addition to the hoa.r.s.e shouting, the air was rent from time to time by the sound of a blast as from a large horn.

The effect of this upon Manning, who had been thrust behind them by Wilson, was peculiar. At each blast he threw back his head and sniffed at the air as a war horse does at sound of the bugle. His eyes brightened, his lean frame quivered with emotion, his hands closed into tight knots. The girl, observing this, crept closer to him in alarm. She seized his arm and called to him, but he made no response.

"Father! Father!" she shouted above the din.

He started forward a pace, but she drew him back. Seeing her he came to himself again for a moment. She scarcely knew him; the old look of intensity which strained almost every feature out of the normal had transformed him. He stood now as it were between two personalities. He partially realized this, for he stepped forward behind Wilson and shouted:

"They come! They come! I--I think I can stop them--for a little.

If--if I do, don't delay--don't wait for me."

Wilson thought he rambled.

"Do you hear? Quick--tell me?"