The Sign of the Spider

by Bertram Mitford

  CHAPTER XXV.

  HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIEND.

  Now, if Laurence Stanninghame's prospects were brightening, and hislines beginning to fall in pleasant places,--relatively speaking, thatis, for everything is relative in the conditions of life,--the same heldnot good as regards the other twain of our trio of adventurers. Bothwere kept prisoners in Nondwana's kraal, and, save that they were notill-treated, no especial consideration was shown them. They were allowedto wander about the open space outside, but watchful eyes were ever uponthem, and did they venture beyond certain limits, they were speedilymade aware of the fact. No such distractions as joining in the huntingparties, or coming and going at will such as their more fortunatecomrade enjoyed, were allowed them, and against the deadly monotony ofthe life--in conjunction with a boding suspense as to their ultimatefate--did Holmes' restless spirit mightily chafe; indeed, at times hefelt sore and resentful towards Laurence. At such times Hazon'sjudicious counsel would step in.

  "Shall we never make a philosopher of you, Holmes?" he would say. "Doyou think, for instance, that Stanninghame, faring no better thanourselves, would improve our own lot any? No; rely upon it, his standingin with the king and the rest of them is doing us no harm in the longrun."

  "I suppose you're right, Hazon; and it's beastly selfish of one to lookupon it any other way," poor Holmes would reply wearily. "But, O Lord,this is deadly work. Is there no way of getting away from here?"

  "Not any at present. Yet you don't suppose I'm keeping my eyes or earsshut, do you? We must watch our chances, and see and hear all we can. Ibelieve Tyisandhlu is a decent fellow all round, and mind, you do comeacross plenty of pretty good fellows even among savages, whatever boshsome men may talk to the contrary. But I don't care for Nondwana. Ibelieve he'd make short work of us if he dared. Possibly the king may bewatching his opportunity of smuggling us out of the country. At anyrate, I don't think he means us any harm, if only by reason of theastonishing fancy he seems to have taken to Stanninghame!"

  This, as we know, was very near the truth, though far more so than thespeakers guessed. For Laurence, moved both by inclination andexpediency, had rigidly adhered to his promise of secrecy. If it seemedhard that he should be compelled to shut his companions out of hisentire confidence, he consoled himself with the certainty that theiradmission into it, though it might encourage them mentally, could in nowise benefit them materially--very much the reverse, indeed, for itwould probably bring about their destruction.

  "Well, if anything is going to be done, it had better be soon or not atall. It wouldn't take much to send me clean off my chump," said Holmesdejectedly. "Every day I feel more inclined to break out--to run amuckin a crowd, if only for the sake of a little excitement. Anything for alittle excitement!"

  The two were strolling up and down outside Nondwana's kraal. It was astill, hot morning; oppressive as though a storm were brooding. A filmyhaze lay upon the lower valley bottom, and the ground gave forth ashimmer of heat. Even the amphitheatre of dazzling snow-peaks omitted tolook cool against the cloudless blue, while the coppery-terraced cliffsseemed actually to glow as though red hot.

  "I hate this," growled Holmes, looking around upon as magnificent ascene of nature's grandeur as the earth could show, "positively hate it.I shall never be able to stand the sight of a mountain again as long asI live--once we are out of this. Oh, Heavens, look! What a brute!"

  His accents of shuddering disgust were explained. Something was movingamong the stones in front--something with great, hairy, shoggling legs,and a body the size of a thrush and much the same colour. A spider,could it be, of such enormous size? Yet it was; and as truly repulsiveand horrible-looking a monster as ever made human flesh creep atbeholding.

  Whack! The stone flung by Holmes struck the ground beside the creature;struck it hard.

  "Hold, you infernal fool," half snarled, half yelled Hazon. But beforehe could arrest the other's arm, whack!--went a second stone. The aimwas true, the grisly beast, crushed and maimed, lay contracting andunfolding its horrible legs in the muscular writhings of its deaththroes.

  "What's the row, eh?" grumbled Holmes, staring open-mouthed, under theimpression that his comrade had gone mad, and at first sight not withoutreason, for Hazon's face had gone a swarthy white, and his eyes seemedto glare forth from it like blazing coals.

  "Row? You fool, you've signed our death-warrant, that's all. Here,quick, pretend to be throwing stones on to it, as if we were playing atsome game. Don't you see? The name of this tribe--People of the Spider!They venerate the beast. If we have been seen, nothing can save us."

  "Oh, Heavens!" cried Holmes, aghast as the whole ugly truth dawned uponhim, setting to with a will to pile stones upon the remains of the slainand shattered monster.

  "Too late!" growled Hazon. "We have been seen! Look."

  Several women were running stealthily and in alarm towards the gate, andimmediately a frightful uproar arose from within. Armed with sticks andspears, the warriors came pouring forth, and in a moment had surroundedthe two--a howling, infuriated, threatening mob.

  Although expecting nothing less than instant death, with the emergencyHazon's coolness had returned. He stood in the midst of the appallinguproar, apparently unmoved. Holmes, on the other hand, looked wildlyaround, but less in fear than in desperation. He was calculating hischances of being able to snatch a weapon from one of them, and to layabout him in the last fierce battle for life. "Anything for a littleexcitement!" he had said. In very truth his aspiration was realized.There was excitement enough in the brandished spears and blazingeyeballs, in the infuriated demoniacal faces, in the deafening, roaringclamour.

  "This is no matter for you," cried Hazon in firm, ringing tones. "Takeus to the king. We can explain. The affair was an accident."

  At this the ferocious tumult redoubled. An accident! They had liftedtheir hand against the great tutelary Spider that guarded Nondwana'shouse! An accident!

  "Hold! To the king let them be taken!" interposed a strong, deep voice.And extending his hands, as though to arrest the uplifted weapons,Nondwana himself stalked into the circle.

  There was no gainsaying the mandate of one so great. Weapons werelowered, but still vociferating horrible threats, the crowd, with thetwo offenders in its midst, moved in the direction of Imvungayo.

  But it seemed as though the wild, pealing shouts of rage andconsternation were a very tocsin; for now from every kraal, near andfar, the inhabitants came surging forth, streaming down the hillsidesover the face of the plain like swarming ants--and before they reachedImvungayo the two whites seemed to move in the midst of a huge sea ofgibing, infuriated faces, as the dark crowd, gathering volume, pouredonward, rending the air with deafening shouts of execration and menace.But the royal guards barred the gate, suffering no entrance save on thepart of the two white men, together with Nondwana and a few of thegreater among the people.

  "This is the tightest place we have been in yet," murmured Hazon. "Totread on the superstitions of any race is to thrust one's head into thejaws of a starved lion."

  "D---- their filthy superstition," said Holmes, savagely desperate."Well, I did the thing, so I suppose I shall be the one to suffer."

  The other said nothing. He had a shrewd suspicion that more than onelife would be required in atonement. But he and death had stared eachother in the face so frequently that once more or less did not greatlymatter.

  On learning the cause of the tumult, Tyisandhlu had come forth, and nowsat, as he frequently did, to administer justice at the head of thegreat central space. When the shouts of "_bonga!_" which greeted hispresence had subsided, he ordered that the two whites should be broughtforward.

  This was the first time the latter had seen the king, and now, as theybeheld his stately, commanding bearing, calm and judicial, both of them,Holmes especially, began to hope. They would explain the matter, andoffer ample apologies. The owner of that fine, intellectual countenance,savage though he might be called, he, surely, had a soul above thedebased supe
rstitions of his subjects. Hitherto he had spared theirlives--surely now he would not sacrifice them to the clamour of a mob.Yet, as Hazon had said, to tread on the superstitions of any race wasthe most fatal thing on earth.

  "What is this that has been done?" spoke the king, when he had heard allthat the accusers had to say. "Surely no such deed has been wroughtamong us since the Ba-gcatya have been a nation."

  There was a sternness, a menace even, in the full, deep voice, thatdispelled all hope in the minds of the two thus under judgment. They hadcommitted the one unpardonable sin. In vain Hazon elaborately explainedthe whole affair, diplomatically setting forth that the act beingaccidental, and done by strangers and white people, in ignorance, noill-luck need befall the nation, as might be the case were the symbol ofits veneration offended by its own people. The voice of the king wasmore stern than before--almost jeering.

  "Accidental!" he repeated. "Even though it be so, accidents often bringgreater evil in their results than the most deliberate wrong-doing--forsuch is the rule of life."

  "That is so!" buzzed the indunas grouped on either side of the king."_Au!_ hear the wisdom of the Burning North Wind!"

  "Well, then, in this matter atonement must be made. It appears that oneonly was concerned in it, and that one is Nomtyeketye."

  This was the somewhat uncomplimentary nick-name by which Holmes wasknown, bestowed upon him on account of his talkative tendencies ascontrasted with the laconic sententiousness of Hazon.

  "I rule, therefore," went on the king, "that Nomtyeketye _be taken henceto where atonement is offered_. The other may depart from among us tohis own land."

  A shout of approval rose from the vast crowd without as the decisionbecame known. Some there were who clamoured for two victims--but theking's decision was not lightly to be questioned. And before the shouthad died into a murmur the whole multitude of hideous black figures intheir weird disguise came bounding across the open space to seize theirvictim. But before they could surround the latter an unlooked-forinterruption occurred.

  "Hold!" cried a loud voice. "I have a favour to ask the king. I, whobear the Sign!" And Laurence, who in the midst of one of the listeninggroups had been unseen hitherto, now came forward, none hindering, andstood before the king.

  A deep silence was upon all. Every head was bent forward. The frightfulpriesthood of the demon paused, with staring eyes, to wait on what newturn events would take.

  "Say on, Nyonyoba," said Tyisandhlu shortly, looking anything butpleased at the interruption.

  "It is this, O Burning Wind. Let Nomtyeketye return to his own people. Iwill take his place."

  "You?" exclaimed the king, as a gasp of amazement shivered through thelisteners.

  "Yes, I. Hearken, Ndabezita. I it was who brought him hither. He isyoung, and his life is all before him. Mine is all behind me, and hasbeen no great gain at that. I will proceed with these"--with a glance inthe direction of the blackly horrible group--"to where atonement isoffered. But let the two return together to their own land."

  "Pause, Nyonyoba! Pause and think!" said the king, speaking in a deepand solemn voice. "That which awaits you, if I grant your request, isof no light order. Men have sought their own death rather than face it.Pause, I say." Then rapidly, and speaking very low: "Even I cannot saveyou there. It may be that the Sign itself cannot."

  Now, what moved him to an act of heroic self-sacrifice, LaurenceStanninghame hardly knew himself. It may have been that he did notappreciate its magnitude. It may have been that he held more than alingering belief that the king would find some secret means for hisdeliverance, whereas to his younger comrade no such way of escape layopen. Or was it that at this moment certain words, spoken long ago inwarning, now stood forth clear and in flaming letters upon his brain:"_Other men have gone up country with Hazon, but not one of them hasever returned!_" He himself, abiding henceforward among the Ba-gcatya,and Holmes consigned to the mysterious doom, would not those warningwords be carried out in all their fell fatality? But that after theseyears of hardening in the lurid school of bloodshed and ruthlessness heshould be capable of sacrificing himself for another, through motives ofimpulsive generosity, Laurence could not have brought himself tobelieve. Indeed, he could not have defined his own motives.

  "Give me your word, Great Great One, in the sight of the whole nation,"he said in a loud voice, "that these two shall be suffered to departunharmed--now, at once--and I will take the place of Nomtyeketye."

  "That will I readily do, Nyonyoba, for I have no need of strangers heresuch as these," answered Tyisandhlu. Then, sadly, "And--you areresolved?"

  "I am."

  "Then it must be. For ye two, go in peace;--enough shall be given youfor your journey."

  Holmes, who understood the language very imperfectly, had no clearnotion, even then, of what had taken place. But when he saw the giganticforms in their black disguise bounding forward to surround Laurence, he,being otherwise unarmed, instinctively threw himself into a boxingattitude, which was, under the circumstances, ridiculous, if natural.

  "Keep cool, you young idiot," snarled Hazon. "We're out of this messbetter than we deserve."

  "Why, what's happened?"

  "Stanninghame is acting substitute for you, and we are to be fired outof the country, which is good news to you, I take it."

  "But I can't allow it!" cried Holmes bewilderedly, as the truth began todawn upon him. "No, hang it, I can't,--tell the king, I----"

  "No good! Keep your hair on! and remember, too, it's more than probablehe won't come to any harm. He stands in with them too well."

  Holmes, more than half reassured, suffered himself to bepersuaded--especially as he was powerless to do anything at all. Butwhether Hazon believed or not in what he had just advanced must remainforever locked up as a mystery in the breast of that inscrutableindividual. One thing, however, he did not believe in, and that was inhe himself suffering for the foolishness of other people.

  Meanwhile Laurence, in the midst of his disguised executioners, waspursued by the howling and execrations of the crowds, which partedeagerly to make way for their passage. Outside on the open plain a vastmob of women had collected, yelling shrilly at him--and even pelting himwith earth and sticks. One of the latter, thrown at close quarters,hurling over the heads of his guards, struck him on the shoulder,painfully and hard. He looked up. It had been hurled by the hand ofLindela; and as he met her eyes full, the face which he had last lookedupon softening and glowing with the wondrous light of love, was nowwreathed into a horrible grin of hate and savagery.

  "_Yau!_ The Spider is hungry! Fare thee well, Umtagati,"[6] jeered thechief's daughter shrilly.

  FOOTNOTE:

  [6] Doer of witchcraft.