The Sign of the Spider

by Bertram Mitford

  CHAPTER IX.

  HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL.

  "I'd sell my immortal soul, twenty times over, for a few thousands ofthe damnation stuff; but as that article isn't negotiable, why, bettermake an end of the whole bother."

  Thus Laurence to himself, though unconsciously aloud. His room was anend one on the _stoep_, and the door was open. The time was the middleof the morning, and he sat thinking.

  His thoughts were black and bitter--as how indeed should they beotherwise? He had come to this place to make one final effort toretrieve his fortunes. That effort had failed. He had put what littleremained to him into various companies--awaiting the boom--and no boomhad ensued. On the contrary, things had never looked more dead than atthis moment, never since the Rand had been opened up. The bulk of thescrip owned by him was now barely saleable at any price; for the residuehe might have obtained a quarter of the price he had paid for it. He wasruined.

  He was not alone in this--not by a very large number. But what sort ofconsolation 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 himthroughout life had stuck to him most consistently--would do so untilthe end. The end? Ha, had not "the end" come? What more was left? Moresqualor, more deterioration--gradually dragging him down, down. Heavenknew what he might come to, what final degradation might not be his. Theend? Yes, better let it be the end--now, here--while in the fullpossession of his faculties, in the full possession of the dignity ofhis 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 theother rooms were away, drowning their cares in liquor saloons, orfeverishly hanging around 'Change to grasp at any possible straw. He wasabout to close the door. No, it had better remain as it was. The thingwould look more accidental that way.

  He returned into the room, and unlocking his portmanteau, took out asix-shooter. It was loaded in every chamber, for in those days such acompanion 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-meditative way. Then, grasping the butt, he placed the muzzleagainst his forehead.

  The hard metal imprinted a cold ring just between the eyes. He did notflinch at the grisly contact. His hand was as firm as a rock. He mustdepress the muzzle just a trifle--it would make more certain. He beganto press the trigger, ever so faintly, then a little more firmly,strangely wondering how much more imperceptible a degree of pressurewould be required to produce the roaring, shattering shock which shouldwhirl him into the dark night of Death.

  Well, but--afterwards? Who knew? If it were as they taught, even then itcould be no augmentation of the hopelessness of this life. Perhaps theymight make a devil of him, he thought, with grim satisfaction, as ablack wave of hatred towards humanity at large surged through his brain.In that eventuality his role of tormentor as well as tormented would bea congenial one.

  The dark night of death! What would it matter about money then, and allthe sordid and pitiful wretchednesses entailed by the want of it? A leapin the dark! It held all the excitement of an unknown adventure to theman who sat there, pressing the muzzle of the deadly weapon hard againsthis forehead. The additional pressure of so much as a hair's weight uponthat trigger now!

  Could it be that the man's guardian angel was with him still, that asaving presence really hovered about him in the prosaic noonday? Astrange chord seemed to thrill and vibrate within his brain, bringingbefore his vision the face of Lilith Ormskirk. There it was, as he hadbeheld it but a few days since; but now the sweet eyes were troubled, asthough clouded with pain and bitter disappointment.

  "You, whom I thought so strong, are weak after all! You, to whom I lovedto listen as the very ideal of a well-balanced mind and judgment, areabout to do what will stamp your memory forever as that of one who wasinsane! Have I been no more to you than that--I who thought to havebrightened and strengthened your life all that within me lay? It cannotbe! You shall not do it."

  He could not. The voice thrilled to his hearing, as plainly, asarticulately as it had ever done when she had stood before him. He laiddown the weapon, and passed his hand in a dazed sort of manner over hisbrows. Laurence Stanninghame was saved.

  He stared around, somewhat unsteadily, as though more than halfexpecting to behold her there in the room. What did it all mean? At anyrate she had saved him. Was it for good or for ill? Then the full ironyof the position struck upon his satirical soul. His mind went back overhis acquaintance with Lilith. What if his disillusioning had been alittle less complete? What if he had fled the rich attractiveness of herpresence, had shunned her with heroic scrupulousness, acting from somefiddle-faddle notion of so-called "honour"? Just this, he, LaurenceStanninghame, would at that moment be lying a lifeless thing, withbrains scattered all over the room--a memory, a standing monument ofcommonplace weakness. But she had saved him from this--had saved him assurely 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 onemore solitary trump yet lurk up his sleeve unknown to himself? No, itcould not be; and his thoughts grew dark again. Yet he was safenow--safe from himself. Lilith had done it--her influence, her love!

  He thought long and thought hard, but still hopelessly. 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 adead cert. already, Stanninghame."

  Laurence did not start at the voice, which was that of Hazon, whoseshadow darkened the door. The up-country man at that moment especiallynoticed 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 sofaint a grin as his keen eyes fixed themselves for a moment full uponthe other's face. Laurence had forgotten the tell-tale imprint left inthe 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 thething away. It might go off. Don't mind me; I've been through the samestage myself."

  "Have you? How did it feel, eh?" said Laurence, with a sort of wearyimperturbability, filling his pipe and pushing the pouch across thetable to his friend.

  "Bad. Ah, that's right! Instead of fooling about 'cleaning' guns atsuch times, fill your pipe. That's the right lay, depend upon it."

  Laurence made no reply, but lighting up, puffed away in silence. Histhoughts 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 whichconsists of being wise after the event, Laurence did not deem worthy ofanswer.

  "And I was waiting for it to come," pursued Hazon. "Say, now, why notmake a trip up country with me?"

  "That sounds likely, doesn't it? Didn't I just tell you I was stonybroke?"

  "You did. The very reason why I made my proposal."

  "Don't see it. If I were to sell out every rag of my scrip now, Icouldn't raise enough to pay my shot towards the outfit. And I couldn'teven render service in kind, for I've had no experience of waggons andall that sort of thing. So where does it come in?"

  "It does come in. You can render service in kind--darned much so. Idon'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 afairly ri
ch man, or----"

  "Or what?"

  "You'll never come back at all."

  In spite of his normal imperturbability, Laurence was conscious of aquickening of the pulses. The suggestion of adventure--of an adventureon a magnificent scale, and with magnificent results if successful, asconveyed in the other's reply, caused the blood to surge hotly throughhis frame. He had been strangely drawn towards this dark, reticent,solitary individual, beneath whose quiet demeanour lurked such asuggestion of force and power, who shunned the friendship of all even asall shunned his, who had been moderately intimate even with none buthimself. This wonderful land--the dim, mysterious recesses of itsinterior--what possibilities did it not hold? And in groping into suchpossibilities this, above all others, was the comrade he would havechosen to have at his side. Not that he had forgotten the words of darkwarning spoken by Rainsford and others, but at such he laughed.

  "Are you taking it on any?" queried Hazon, after a pause of silence onthe part of both.

  "I am. I don't mind telling you, Hazon, that life, so far as I amconcerned, 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 ofstealing away to hang one's self in a well. I tell you squarely, I'dwalk into the jaws of the devil himself to effect the capture of theoof-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."

  "So? Where was that?" said Hazon, ever so faintly surprised atreceiving an affirmative reply.

  "In Paris. A press friend of mine had to go and see two fellowsguillotined, and managed to work me in with him. We were as close to themachine, 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 fillhim 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 uphere. I'm pretty good at reading people, and I read you. 'That's the manfor me,' I said to myself. 'He's come to the end of his tether. He'sjust at that stage of life when it's kill or cure, and he means kill orcure.'"

  "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 adash of scepticism.

  "We have. Still, I'm not gassing when I tell you I knew all about itbefore. How? you want to ask. Because I've been through it all myself. Ithought, 'That chap is throwing his last card; if he loses, he's myman.' And you have lost."

  "But what's the object of the trip, Hazon? Gold?"

  "No."

  "Stones?"

  "Not stones."

  "Ivory, then?"

  "That's it; ivory," and a gleam of saturnine mirth shot across theother'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, Stanninghame, listen carefully, and we'll talk outthe scheme. If you're on, well and good; if you're dead off it, why, Itold you I had read you, and you're not the man to let drop by word orhint 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 theluncheon bell rang, and Laurence Stanninghame took his seat at the tablealong with the rest, to talk scrip in the scathingly despondent way inwhich the darling topic was conversationally dealt with in these days,he was conscious that he had turned the corner of a curiouspsychological crisis in his life.

  In the afternoon he took his way down to Booyseus. Would he find Lilithin? It was almost too much good luck to hope to find her alone. As hewalked, he was filled with a strange elation. The dull pain of a verynear parting was largely counteracted by the manner of it. Such aparting had been before his mind for long; but then he would have goneforth broken down, ruined, more utterly without hope in life than ever.Now it was different. He was going forth upon an adventure fraught withall manner of stirring potentialities--one from which he would returnwealthy, or, as his friend and thenceforth comrade had said, one fromwhich 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 theomen was a good one.

  "Why, you are becoming quite a stranger," she said. But the note ofgladness underlying the reproach did not escape him, nor a certainlighting up of her face as they clasped hands, with the subtilelingering pressure now never absent from that outwardly formal method ofgreeting.

  "Am I?" he answered, thinking how soon, how very soon, he would becomeone in reality. "But you were going out?" For she had on her hat andgloves, and carried a sunshade.

  "I was. You are only just in time--only just. But I won't now that youhave come."

  "On the contrary, I want you to. I want you to come out with me, and atonce, before an irruption of bores renders that manoeuvreimpracticable. Will you?"

  "Of course I will. Which way shall we go? Up to the town?"

  "Not much. Right in the opposite direction, and as far away from it aspossible. Are you alone?"

  "Not quite alone. Aunt is having her afternoon sleep; but May and Georgewent to the town this morning. They intended to have lunch at theStevensons', and then go on to the cricket ground. There's a match orsomething on to-day. George was cross because I wouldn't go too; but Ihad a touch of headache, and went to sleep instead. And oh, Laurence, Ihad such a horrible dream. It was about you."

  "Oh, was it?" The words rapped themselves out quickly, nervously, moreso than she had ever heard him talk before. But the awful and ghastlycrisis of the morning was recalled by her words. "About me? Tell it tome."

  "I can't. It was all rather vague, and yet so real. I dreamed that youwere in the face of some strange, some horrible danger, against which Iwas 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 upcrying!"

  "Your dream was a true one, my Lilith. No, I will not tell you how or inwhat way. And will you always be empowered to warn me--to save me, mysweet guardian angel? I shall need it often enough during thenext--er--in the time that is coming."

  His face had taken on an unwonted expression, and his tones weresuspiciously husky. Lilith looked wonderingly at him, and her ownexpression was grave and earnest. The sweet eyes became dewy with unshedtears.

  "You know I will, if I may," she answered, stealing a hand into his fora sympathetic pressure, as they walked side by side.

  They had been walking at a good pace over the open, treeless veldt, andthe roofs of Booyseus were now quite dwarfed behind them.

  "But, tell me," she continued, "are things any better? Oh, it isdreadful that you should have come all this way only to be morecompletely 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 amgoing away."

  She started. She knew that those words must one day be spoken. Now thatthey 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
moment she lost sight ofall that was involved by such a destination. They would still be in thesame land. That was something--or seemed so.

  Now all the latent instincts, never half drawn forth, surged like moltenvolcano fires through Laurence Stanninghame's soul. The dead and stormynature, slain within him, revivified, burst forth into warm, pulsating,struggling, rebellious life. This striving of heart against heart, thisdesperate effort still to patch up the rents in the flimsy veil, movedhim infinitely. The veldt on the Witwatersrand is as open and devoid ofcover as a billiard-table. The two were visible for miles. But for thishe knew not what he might have done--rather he knew full well what hecertainly would have done.

  They took refuge in practical topics; they talked of the up-countrytrip.

  "You are very friendly with that Mr. Hazon, are you not, Laurence?Nobody else is, and there are strange stories, not told, but hintedabout him. He is a man I should be almost afraid of, and yet halfadmire. He strikes me as one who would be a terrible and relentlessenemy, but as true as steel, true to self-sacrificing point, to afriend."

  "That's exactly my opinion. Now, Hazon and I suit each other down to theground. I have an especial faculty, remember, for getting on withunpopular individuals."

  Thus they talked, and at length time forced them to turn their stepshomeward. And as the sun rays began to slant golden upon the surroundingveldt, it seemed to Laurence that even that _triste_ wilderness took ona glow that was more than of earth. How that afternoon, that walk, woulddwell within his memory, stamped there indelibly! He thought how the dayhad opened, of that gnawing mental struggle culminating in--what? Butfor this girl at his side he would now be--what? She had saved him, shealone--her confidence in him, her high opinion of him, and--her love.Yes, her love. He looked upon her as she walked beside him, entrancingbeyond words in her rich, warm beauty, a perfect dream of grace andsymmetry. Even the hot sunlight seemed to linger, as with a kiss, uponthe dark, brilliant loveliness of her eyes, on the soft curve of herlips.

  "You are cruel, sorceress," he broke forth. "You have made yourself lookespecially enchanting because soon I shall see you no more. You arelooking perfect."

  She flashed a bright smile upon him, but it seemed to fade into ashadow, as of pain.

  "Am I? Well, Laurence, one knows instinctively when one is looking one'sbest. It would be affectation to pretend otherwise. And I love to makemyself 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. Weshall not be alone together again, I fear--this evening, I mean. But youwill 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 alonetogether again. But even the jealous George, who came back from the townmore cantankerous than ever on learning of this addition, found balm inGilead. That brute Stanninghame was going away up-country soon, he putit. Heaven send a convenient shot of malaria or a providential assegaiprod to keep him there forever!