And then, as he walked thus, thinking, and thinking hard, in the fierce, desperate, clearheadedness of a strong, cool-nerved man face to face with despair, a voice—a female voice, lifted in song—sounded across his path, nearer and nearer. And now a wave of hope, of relief, surged through Laurence Stanninghame's heart, for there flooded in upon him, as with an inspiration, a way out of the situation. For he knew both the voice and the singer, and at that moment a turn in the bushes brought the latter and himself face to face.

FOOTNOTE:

[2] A term of deference frequently used in addressing one of the royal family.



CHAPTER XXIII.

LINDELA.

A woman, young, tall, perfectly proportioned, light of colour, and with the bright and pleasing expression common among the well-born of the Ba-gcatya maidens, enhanced by large lustrous eyes, lips parted in a smile half-startled, half-coquettish, revealing a row of teeth of dazzling whiteness of unrivalled evenness. She wore a mutya or skirt of beautiful bead-work, and a soft robe of dressed fawn-skin but half concealed the splendid outlines of her frame. Withal there was an aspect of dignity in her erect carriage, and the pose of her head, which the Grecian effect of the impiti, or cone into which her hair was gathered above the scalp, went far to enhance. She was not alone—two other young women, also attractive of aspect, being in attendance upon her, though these held somewhat in the background.

"Greeting, Nyonyoba," she began, in a sweet and musical voice. "I was startled for a moment—here where I expected to find none."

"To thee, greeting, daughter of the great," returned Laurence, for this girl was a princess of the highest rank in the nation, being, in fact, a daughter of Nondwana the king's brother—that same chief whose son's accession to manhood was to be the occasion of his own departure to another sphere. Nor was it, indeed, the first time these two had talked together.

"And why are you sad and heavy of countenance, Nyonyoba? Was the hunt bad—the game scarce?" she went on, with a quick searching glance into his eyes.

"Not so," he answered. "Those who are with me bring on much ivory for the king's treasury. For yourself, Lindela, I found a bright-plumaged and rare bird, which I will stuff and set up for you."

The girl uttered a cry of delight, and her face brightened. It so happened that Laurence was something of a taxidermist, and had already stuffed a few birds and small animals for the chief's daughter, who was as delighted with her increasing "museum" as any child could have been. Now, in her unfeigned glee over the prospect of a new specimen, Lindela looked extremely attractive; and noting it, an unconscious softness had crept into the man's tone. Even the girls behind noticed it, and whispered to each other, sniggering:

"Hau! Isityeli! Quite a wooer! Nyonyoba is hoeing up new land."

"Withdraw a little from these, Lindela," he said in a lowered tone; "I would talk."

The chief's daughter made a barely perceptible sign, but her attendants understood it, and remained where they stood.

"The success or failure of a hunt is a small thing. Such does not render a man heavy of countenance," he went on, when they were beyond earshot.

"What does, then?" said the girl, raising her large eyes swiftly to his.

"Sorrow—parting. Such are the things which make life dark. I have dwelt long among your people, and at the prospect of leaving them my heart is sore."

As the last words left his lips, Laurence learned in just one brief flash of a second exactly what he wanted to know. But the look of startled pain in Lindela's face gave way to one of surprise.

"Of leaving them?" she echoed. "Has the Great Great One, then, ordered you to begone, Nyonyoba?"

"Not yet. But it will be so. Listen! At the full of the second moon."

A cry escaped her. She understood. For a moment the self-control of her savage ancestors entirely forsook her. She became the child of nature—all human.

"It shall not be! It shall not be!"

The passion, the abandonment in the soft, liquid Zulu tone—in the large eyes, transforming the whole attractive face—touched even him—penetrated even the scaly armour which encased his hardened heart. Considerations of expediency no longer reigned there alone as he stood face to face with the chief's daughter. She was a magnificent specimen of womanhood, he decided, gazing with unfeigned admiration upon her splendid frame, upon the unconscious grace of her every movement.

"If I go, I return not ever," he went on, resolved to strike while the iron was hot—to strike as hard as he knew how. "Yet how to remain—for the brother of the king is so great a chief that he who would approach him with lobola[3] would need to own half the wealth of the Ba-gcatya people. Now I, who owned much wealth, am yet poor to-day, for the Ba-gcatya have killed all my slaves, and the king has taken my ivory and goods."

The girl's eyes sparkled. Perhaps she too had learned something she wanted to know; indeed, it must have been so, for her whole face was lit up with a gladsome light, a wonderfully attractive light.

"Perchance the king will return some of it," she said. "Yet you are a white man, and strong, Nyonyoba—are all white men like you, I wonder?—and can overcome all difficulties. Listen! You shall not leave us at the full of the second moon. Now, farewell—and—forget not my name."[4]

There was a grandeur of resolution in her tone, in her glance, as she uttered these last words, her lustrous eyes, wide and clear, meeting his full. Laurence, standing there gazing after the tall, retreating form of the chief's daughter, felt something like a sense of exultation stealing over him. His scheme seemed already to glow with success. He had suspected for some time that Lindela regarded him with more than favour; and indeed, while weighing the prospect of casting in his lot with the Ba-gcatya, he had already in his own mind marked her out to share it. Now, however, the thing had become imperative. In order to save not merely his life, but to escape a fate which brooded over him with a peculiarly haunting horror, he had got to do this thing, to take to wife, according to the customs of the Ba-gcatya, the daughter of Nondwana, the niece of the king. Then not a man in the nation dare raise a hand against him; and the dour priesthood of the Spider might look further for their victim—and might find in their selection one much more remote from the throne.

And now that he was face to face with the prospect, it struck him as anything but an unpleasing one. Such an alliance would place him among the most powerful chiefs in the land. All the ambition in the adventurer's soul warmed to the prospect. To be high in authority among this fine race, part-ruler over this splendid country, sport in abundance, and that of the most enthralling kind—war occasionally; to dwell, too, in the strong revivifying air of these grand uplands! Why, a man might live forever under such conditions.

And the other side of the picture—what was it? Even if he returned to civilization—even if it were possible—he would now return almost as poor as he had quitted it,—to the old squalid life, with its shifts and straits. His whole soul sickened over the recollection. Nothing could compensate for such—nothing. Besides, put nakedly, it amounted to this: His experiences of respectability had been disastrous. They had been such as to draw out all that was latently evil in his nature, and, indeed, to implant within him traits which at one time he could never have suspected himself capable of harbouring. Physically it had reduced his system to the lowest. All things considered, he could not think that the adventurous life—hard, unscrupulous, lawless as it was—had changed him for the worse. It had developed many good traits, and had enabled him to forget many evil ones.

"I would have speech with the king."

Those who sentinelled the gate of the great kraal, Imvungayo, conferred a moment among themselves, and immediately two men were sent to learn the royal pleasure as to the request. Laurence Stanninghame, awaiting their return, was taciturn and moody, and as he gazed around his one thought was lest his scheme should miscarry. The sun had just gone below the western peaks, and a radiant afterglow lingered upon the dazzling snow ridges, flooding some with a roseate hue, while others seemed dyed blood-red. Long files of women, calabash on head, were wending up from the stream, singing as they walked, or exchanging jests and laughter, their soft, rich voices echoing melodiously upon the evening stillness. Even the shrill "moo" of cattle, and the deep-toned voices of men—mellowed by distance, came not inharmoniously from the smaller kraals which lay scattered along the hillside; and but for the shining spearheads and tufted shields of the armed guard in the great circle of Imvungayo, the scene was a most perfect one of pastoral simplicity and peace. And then, as the gray, pearly lights of evening, merging into the sombre shades of twilight, drew a deepening veil over this scene of fair and wondrous beauty, once more the words of Lindela, in all their unhesitating reassurance, seemed to sound in this man's ears, rekindling the fire of hope within his soul,—perchance rekindling fire of a different nature.

"The Great Great One awaits you, Nyonyoba."

Laurence started from his reverie, and, accompanied by two of the guards, proceeded across the great open space in silence. At the gate of the isigodhlo, an inclosure made of the finest woven grass, and containing the royal dwellings, he deposited his rifle on the ground, and, deliberately unbuckling the strap of his revolver holster, placed that weapon behind the other; and thus unarmed, according to strict Zulu etiquette, he prepared to enter. An inceku, or royal household servant, received him at the gate, and the guards having saluted and withdrawn, he was ushered by the attendant into the king's presence.

The royal house, a large, dome-shaped, circular hut, differed in no respect from the others, save that it was of somewhat greater size. Laurence, standing upright within it, could make out three seated figures, the shimmer of their head-rings and the occasional shine of eyeballs being the only distinct feature about them. Then somebody threw an armful of dry twigs upon the fire which burned in the centre, and as the light crackled up he saw before him the king and the two fighting indunas, Ngumunye and Silawayo.

"Bayete!" he exclaimed, lifting his hat courteously.

"I behold you, Nyonyoba," replied the king. "Welcome—be seated."

With a murmur of acknowledgment, Laurence subsided upon the grass mat which had been placed for him by the inceku, who had followed him in. Then there was silence for a few moments, while a couple of women entered, bearing large clay bowls of tywala, or native beer; and the liquor having been apportioned out according to etiquette, the attendants withdrew, leaving Laurence alone with the king and the two indunas.

"And the hunt, has it been propitious?" began Tyisandhlu presently.

"It has. Ten tusks of ivory are even now being brought in," replied Laurence. "Also an unusually fine leopard skin which fell to my bullet, and which I would beg the king to accept."

"You are a great hunter, Nyonyoba—a very great one. Whau! The Ba-gcatya will become too rich if you tarry long among us," said Tyisandhlu quizzically, but evidently pleased at the news. "We shall soon be able to arm the whole nation with the fire-weapons, now that we have so much ivory to trade with the northern peoples."

Something in the words struck Laurence. "If you tarry long among us," the king had said. Even these were ominous, and made in favour of the sinister design he had so accidentally discovered. Yet could this courtly hospitality, of which he was the object, indeed cover such a horrible purpose? Well, he dare not bolster himself up with any hope to the contrary, for now many and many an incident returned to his mind, little understood at the time, but, in the light of the conversation he had overheard, as clear as noonday. The fear, the anxiety, too, which had flashed over the face of Lindela at his significant words, proved that the ordeal through which it was designed to pass him was a real and a terrible one. Through her, and her only, lay his chance of escaping it.

"I am glad the king is pleased," he went on, "for I would fain tarry among the Ba-gcatya forever. And, becoming one of that people, shall not all my efforts turn towards rendering it a great people?"

A hum of astonishment escaped the two indunas, and Laurence thought to detect the same significant look on both their faces. Then he added:

"And those whom I have already taught in the use of the fire-weapon, they are strong in it, and reliable?"

"That is so," assented Tyisandhlu.

"And I have taught many the ways of the chase, no less than the more skilled ways of war—that too is true, O Burning Wind?"

"That too is true," repeated the king.

"Good. And now I would crave a boon. While the People of the Spider have become more formidable in war, while the ivory comes pouring into the king's treasury, faster than ever it did before, so that soon there will be enough to buy fire-weapons for the whole nation, I who brought all this to pass remain poor—am the poorest in the nation—and—the daughters of the Ba-gcatya are fair—exceeding fair."

"Whau!" exclaimed the two indunas simultaneously, with their hands to their mouths. But Tyisandhlu said nothing, though a very humorous gleam seemed to steal over his fine features in the firelight.

"The daughters of the Ba-gcatya are exceeding fair," repeated Laurence, "but I, the poorest man in the nation, cannot take wives. For how shall I go to the father of a girl and say, 'Lo, I desire thy daughter to wife, but my slaves have been killed, and my other possessions are now the property of the king; yet inasmuch as I cannot offer lobola, having nothing, give her to me on the same terms?' My house will not grow great in that way. Say now, Ndabezita, will it?"

"I think not, Nyonyoba," answered the king, struggling to repress a laugh. "Yet perhaps a way may be found out of that difficulty, for in truth thou hast done us good service already. But we will talk further as to this matter in the future. For the present, here waits outside one who will show thee what thou wilt be glad to see."

Quick to take this hint of dismissal, Laurence now arose, saluted the king, and retired, not ill-pleased so far with the results of his interview. For in the circumlocutory native way of dealing with matters of importance, Tyisandhlu had received with favour his request, preferred after the same method, that some of his possessions should be restored to him. Then he would offer lobola for Lindela, and——

"I accompany you farther, Nyonyoba, at the word of the Great Great One, by whose light we live."

The voice of the inceku who had ushered him forth broke in upon his meditations. This man, instead of leaving him at the gate of the isigodhlo, still kept at his side, and Laurence, manifesting no curiosity, having picked up his weapons where he had left them, accompanied his guide in silence.

They passed out of Imvungayo, and after walking nearly a mile came to a large kraal, which Laurence recognized as that of Nondwana, the king's brother. And now, for the first time, he felt a thrill of interest surge through him. Nondwana's kraal! Had Tyisandhlu, divining his wishes, indeed forestalled them? But this idea was as quickly dismissed as formulated. The king had probably ordered that one or two of the Ba-gcatya girls should be allotted to him—possibly chosen from those in attendance upon the royal wives. His parting remark seemed to point that way.

"Enter," said the inceku, halting before one of the huts. "Enter, and good go with thee. I return to the king. Fare thee well!"

Laurence bent down and pushed back the wicker slab that formed the door of the hut, and, having crawled through the low, beehive-like entrance, stood upright within, and instinctively kicked the fire into a blaze. And then, indeed, was amazement—wild, incredulous, bewildering amazement—his dominant feeling, for by the light thus obtained he saw that the hut was tenanted by two persons. No feminine voice, however, was raised to bid him welcome in the soft tongue of the Ba-gcatya, but a loud, full-flavoured, masculine English one:

"Stanninghame—by the great Lord Harry! Oh, kind Heavens, am I drunk or dreaming?"

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Payment of cattle made to the father of a girl sought in marriage.

[4] "Lindela" means to "wait for"—in the sense of "to watch for," hence the full significance of the parting remark.



CHAPTER XXIV.

AS FROM THE DEAD.

"There, there, Holmes. Do you quite intend to maim a chap for life, or what?" exclaimed Laurence, liberating, with an effort, his hand from the other's wringing grasp. "And Hazon, too? In truth, life is full of surprises. How are you, Hazon?"

"So so," was the reply, as Hazon, who had been biding the evaporation of his younger friend's effusiveness, now came forward. But his handshake was characteristic of the man, for it was as though they had parted only last week, and that but temporarily.

"And is it really you yourself, old chap?" rattled on Holmes. "It's for all the world as if you had risen from the dead. Why, we never expected to set eyes on you again in life—did we, Hazon?"

"Not much," assented that worthy laconically.

"Well, I can say the same as regards yourselves," rejoined Laurence. "What in the world made them give you quarter?"

"Don't know," answered Hazon. "We managed to get together, back to back, we two, and were fighting like cats. Holmes got a shot on the head with a club that sent him down, and I got stuck full of assegais till I couldn't see. The next thing I knew was that we were being carted along in the middle of a big impi—Heaven knew where. One thing, we were both alive—alive and kicking, too. As soon as we were able to walk they assegaied our bearers, and—made us walk."

"Don't you swallow all that, Stanninghame," cut in Holmes. "He fought, standing over me—fought like any devil, the Ba-gcatya say, although he makes out now it was all playful fun."

"Well, for the matter of that, we had to fight," rejoined Hazon tranquilly. "Where have you been all this time, Stanninghame?"

"Here, at Imvungayo. And you two?"

"Shot if I know. They kept us at some place away in the mountains. Only brought us here a few days back."

"They won't let us out in the daytime," chimed in Holmes. "And it's getting deadly monotonous. But tell us, old chap, how it is they didn't stick you?"

This, however, Laurence, following out a vein of vague instinct, had decided not to do, wherefore he invented some commonplace solution. And it was with strange and mingled feelings he sat there listening to his old confederates. For months he had not heard one word of the English tongue, and now these two, risen, as it were, from the very grave, seemed to bring back all the past, which, under novel and strange conditions, had more and more been fading into the background. He was even constrained to admit to himself that such feelings were not those of unmingled joy. He had almost lost all inclination to escape from among this people, and now these two, by the very associations which their presence recalled, were likely to unsettle him again, possibly to his own peril and undoing. Anyway, he resolved to say nothing as to the incident of "The Sign of the Spider."

"Well, you seem to have got round them better than we did, Stanninghame," said Hazon, with a glance at the Express rifle and revolver wherewith the other was armed. "We have hardly been allowed so much as a stick."

"So? Well, I've been teaching some of them to shoot. That may have had a little to do with it. In fact, I've been laying myself out to make thoroughly the best of the situation."

"That's sound sense everywhere," rejoined Hazon. "You can't get Holmes here to see it, though. He's wearing out his soul-case wanting to break away."

This was no more than the truth. Laurence, seated there, narrowly watching his old comrades, was swift to notice that whereas these months of captivity and suspense had left Hazon the same cool, saturnine, philosophical being he had first known him, upon Holmes they had had quite a different effect. There was a restless, eager nervousness about the younger man; a sort of straining to break away even, as the more seasoned adventurer had described it. The fact was, he was getting desperately home-sick.

"I wish I had never had anything to do with this infernal business," he now bursts forth petulantly. "I swear I'd give all we have made to be back safe and snug in Johannesburg, with white faces around us,—even though I were stony broke."

"Especially one 'white face,'" bantered Laurence. "Well, keep up your form, Holmes. You may be back there yet, safe and sound, and not stony broke either."

"No, no. There is a curse upon us, as I said all along. No good will come to us through such gains. We shall never return—never."

And then Laurence looked across at Hazon, and the glance, done into words, read: "What the mischief is to be made of such a prize fool as this?"

The night was spent in talking over past experiences, and making plans for the future, as to which latter Hazon failed not to note, with faint amusement, blended with complacency, that the disciple had, if anything, surpassed his teacher. In other words, Laurence entered into such plans with a luke-warmness which would have been astonishing to the superficial judgment, but was not so to that of his listener.

Nondwana, the brother of the king, was seated among a group of his followers in the gate as Laurence went forth the next morning to return to his own quarters. This chief, though older than Tyisandhlu in years, was not the son of the principal wife of their common father, wherefore Tyisandhlu, who was, had, in accordance with native custom, succeeded. There had been whisperings that Nondwana had attempted to oppose the accession, and very nearly with success; but whether from motives of policy or generosity, Tyisandhlu had foreborne to take his life. The former motive may have counted, for Nondwana exercised a powerful influence in the nation. In aspect, he was a tall, fine, handsome man, with all the dignity of manner which characterized his royal brother, yet there was a sinister expression ever lurking in his face—a cruel droop in the corner of the mouth.

"Greeting, Nyonyoba. And is it good once more to behold a white face?" said the chief, a veiled irony lurking beneath the outward geniality of his tone.

"To behold the face of a friend once more is always good, Branch of a Royal Tree," returned Laurence, sitting down among the group to take snuff.

"Even when it is that of one risen from the dead?"

"But here it was not so, Ndabezita. My 'Spider' told me that these were all the time alive," rejoined Laurence, with mendacity on a truly generous scale.

"Ha! thy Spider? Yet thou art not of the People of the Spider."

"But I bear the sign," touching his breast. "There are many things made clear to me, which may or may not be set forward in the light of all at the fall of the second moon. Farewell now, Son of the Great."

The start of astonishment, the murmur which ran round the group, was not lost upon him. It was all confirmatory of what he had heard. And then, as he walked back to his tent in Silawayo's kraal, it occurred to Laurence that he had probably made a false move. Nondwana, who, of course, was not ignorant of his daughter's partiality, would almost certainly decide that Lindela had betrayed the secret and sinister intent to its unconscious object; and in that event, how would it fare with her? He felt more than anxious. The king might take long in deciding whether to restore his property or not, and etiquette forbade him to refer to the matter again—at any rate for some time to come. That Nondwana might demand too much lobola, or possibly refuse it altogether as coming from him, was a contingency which, strange to say, completely escaped Laurence's scheming mind.

"Greeting, Nyonyoba. Thy thoughts are deep—ever deep."

The voice, soft, rich, bantering, almost made him start as he raised his eyes, to meet the glad laughing ones of the object of his thoughts at that moment, the chief's daughter.

"What do you here, wandering alone, Lindela?" he said.

"Ha—ha! Now you did well to say my name like that—for—does it not answer your question, 'to wait, to watch for'? And what is meant for two ears is not meant for four or six. I have news, but it is not good."

They were standing in the dip of the path, where a little runlet coursed along between high bush-fringed banks, and the tall, graceful form of the girl stood out in splendid relief from its background of foliage. Not only for love had she awaited him here, for her eyes were sad and troubled as she narrated her discoveries, which amounted to this: It was next to impossible for Laurence to escape the ordeal—whatever it might be. All of weight and position in the nation were resolved upon it, and none more thoroughly so than Nondwana. The king himself would be powerless to save him, even if he wished, and, indeed, why should he run counter to the desire of a whole nation, and that on behalf of a stranger, some time an enemy?

Laurence, listening, felt his anxiety deepen. The net was closing in around him, had indeed already closed, and from it there was no outlet.

"See now, Lindela," he said gravely, his eyes full upon the troubled face of the girl, "if this thing has got to be, there is no help for it. And, however it turns out, the world will go on just the same—and the sun rise and set as before. Why grieve about it?"

"Because I love you—love you—do you hear? I know not how it is. We girls of the Ba-gcatya do not love—not like this. We like to be married to men who are great in the nation—powerful indunas—if not too old,—or those who have much cattle, or who will name us for their principal wife; but we know not how to love. Yet you have taught me, Nyonyoba. Say now, is it through the magic of the white people you have done it?"

"It may be so," replied Laurence, smiling queerly to himself, as he thought how exactly, if unconsciously, this alluring child of nature had described her civilized sisters. Then his face became alert and watchful. He was listening intently.

"I, too, heard something," murmured Lindela, scarcely moving her lips. "I fear lest we have been overlooked. Now, fare thee well, for I must return. But my ears are ever open to what men say, and my father talks much, and talks loud. It may be that I may learn yet more. But, Nyonyoba, delay not in thy first purpose, lest it be too late; and remember, Nondwana has a covetous hand. Fare thee well."

Left alone, Laurence thought he might just as well make sure that no spy had been watching them. Yet though he examined the banks of the stream for some little distance around, he could find no trace of any human presence, no mark even, however faint, of human foot. Still, as he gained his own quarters in Silawayo's kraal, a presentiment lay heavy upon him—a weird, boding presentiment of evil to come—of evil far nearer at hand than he had hitherto deemed.

Long and hard he slept, for he was weary with wakefulness and anxiety. And when he awoke at dusk, intending to seek an interview with the king, he beheld that which in no wise tended to allay his fears. For as he drew nearer to Imvungayo there issued from its gate a crowd of figures—of black, grotesque, horrible figures, and in the midst a man, whom they were dragging along in grim silence, even as they had hauled Lutali to his unknown doom, and as they disappeared into the gathering darkness, Laurence knew only too well that here was another victim—another hideous sacrifice to the grisly and mysterious demon-god. No wonder his blood grew chill within him. Would he be the next?

"And you would still become one of us, Nyonyoba?"

"I would, Great Great One; and to this end have I sent much ivory, and many things the white people prize, including three new guns and much ammunition, to Nondwana."

"Ha! Nondwana's hand is large, and opens wide," said the king, with a hearty chuckle. "Yet Lindela is a sprig of a mighty tree. And I think, Nyonyoba, you yourself are sprung from such a root."

"That is no lie, Ruler of the Wise. As a man's whole height is to the length of half his leg, so is the length of my house to that of the kings of the Ba-gcatya, or even to that of Senzangakona[5] himself."

"Ha! That may well be. Thou hast a look that way."

This conversation befell two days after the events just described. The king had refused him an audience on that evening, and indeed since until now. But in the meantime, by royal orders, a great portion of the plunder taken from the slave-hunters' camp had been restored to him, considerably more, indeed, than he had expected. And now he and Tyisandhlu were seated once more together in the royal dwelling, this time alone.

"But to be sprung from an ancient tree avails a man nothing in my country if he is poor," went on Laurence. "Rather is it a disadvantage, and he had better have been born among the meaner sort. That is why I have found my way hither, Ndabezita."

"That is why? And you have gained the desired riches?" said the king, eyeing him narrowly.

"I had—nearly, when the Ba-gcatya fell upon my camp, and killed my people and my slaves. Now, having lost all, I care not to return to my own land."

"But could you return rich you would care so to return?"

"That is so, Root of a Royal Tree. With large possessions it is indeed a pleasant land to dwell in—with no possessions a man might often think longingly of the restful sleep of death."

"That may well be," said Tyisandhlu thoughtfully. "The cold and the gloom and the blackness, the fogs and the smoke—the mean and horrible-looking people who go to make up the larger portion of its inhabitants. Whau, Nyonyoba, I know more of your white people and their country than anyone here dreams, and it is as you say. Without that which should raise him above such horrors as this, a man might as well be dead."

"Wherefore I prefer to live in the land of the Ba-gcatya rather than die in my own. But whoever brought hither that description of our land told a wonderfully true tale, Ruler of the Great."

Tyisandhlu made no reply, but reaching out his hand he took up a whistle and blew a double note upon it. Immediately there entered an inceku.

"Let no man approach until this note shall again sound," said the king. "Preserve clear a wide space around, lest the ear that opens too wide be removed from its owner's head. Go."

The man saluted humbly and withdrew. And then for long did they sit together and talk in a low tone, the barbarian monarch and the white adventurer—and the subject of their talk seemed fraught with some surprise to the latter, but with satisfaction to both.

"See now, Nyonyoba," concluded the king. "They have brought you here, here whence no man ever returned; and you would become one of us. Well, be it so. There is that about you I trust."

"Whence no man ever returned?" echoed Laurence.

"Surely. Ha! A white man found his way hither once, but—he was a preacher—and I love not such. He never returned."

"But what of my two friends? You will not harm them, Ndabezita, because they are my friends, and we have fought together many a long year," urged Laurence.

"I will spare them for that reason. They shall be led from the country with their eyes covered, lest they find the way back again. But—if they do—they likewise shall never depart from it. And now, Nyonyoba, all I have told you is between ourselves alone. Breathe not a whisper of it or anything about me even to your friends. For the present, farewell, and good fortune be yours."

FOOTNOTE:

[5] Founder of the Zulu dynasty, and of course patriarchally greater than the royal house of this Zulu-originated tribe.



CHAPTER XXV.

HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIEND.

Now, if Laurence Stanninghame's prospects were brightening, and his lines beginning to fall in pleasant places,—relatively speaking, that is, for everything is relative in the conditions of life,—the same held not good as regards the other twain of our trio of adventurers. Both were kept prisoners in Nondwana's kraal, and, save that they were not ill-treated, no especial consideration was shown them. They were allowed to wander about the open space outside, but watchful eyes were ever upon them, and did they venture beyond certain limits, they were speedily made aware of the fact. No such distractions as joining in the hunting parties, or coming and going at will such as their more fortunate comrade enjoyed, were allowed them, and against the deadly monotony of the life—in conjunction with a boding suspense as to their ultimate fate—did Holmes' restless spirit mightily chafe; indeed, at times he felt sore and resentful towards Laurence. At such times Hazon's judicious counsel would step in.

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

"I suppose you're right, Hazon; and it's beastly selfish of one to look upon 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 ears shut, do you? We must watch our chances, and see and hear all we can. I believe Tyisandhlu is a decent fellow all round, and mind, you do come across plenty of pretty good fellows even among savages, whatever bosh some men may talk to the contrary. But I don't care for Nondwana. I believe he'd make short work of us if he dared. Possibly the king may be watching his opportunity of smuggling us out of the country. At any rate, I don't think he means us any harm, if only by reason of the astonishing fancy he seems to have taken to Stanninghame!"

This, as we know, was very near the truth, though far more so than the speakers guessed. For Laurence, moved both by inclination and expediency, had rigidly adhered to his promise of secrecy. If it seemed hard that he should be compelled to shut his companions out of his entire confidence, he consoled himself with the certainty that their admission into it, though it might encourage them mentally, could in no wise benefit them materially—very much the reverse, indeed, for it would probably bring about their destruction.

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

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

"I hate this," growled Holmes, looking around upon as magnificent a scene 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 as I live—once we are out of this. Oh, Heavens, look! What a brute!"

His accents of shuddering disgust were explained. Something was moving among 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 repulsive and horrible-looking a monster as ever made human flesh creep at beholding.

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 before he could arrest the other's arm, whack!—went a second stone. The aim was true, the grisly beast, crushed and maimed, lay contracting and unfolding its horrible legs in the muscular writhings of its death throes.

"What's the row, eh?" grumbled Holmes, staring open-mouthed, under the impression that his comrade had gone mad, and at first sight not without reason, for Hazon's face had gone a swarthy white, and his eyes seemed to 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 at some 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 upon him, setting to with a will to pile stones upon the remains of the slain and shattered monster.

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

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

Although expecting nothing less than instant death, with the emergency Hazon's coolness had returned. He stood in the midst of the appalling uproar, apparently unmoved. Holmes, on the other hand, looked wildly around, but less in fear than in desperation. He was calculating his chances of being able to snatch a weapon from one of them, and to lay about him in the last fierce battle for life. "Anything for a little excitement!" he had said. In very truth his aspiration was realized. There was excitement enough in the brandished spears and blazing eyeballs, in the infuriated demoniacal faces, in the deafening, roaring clamour.

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

At this the ferocious tumult redoubled. An accident! They had lifted their hand against the great tutelary Spider that guarded Nondwana's house! 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 were lowered, but still vociferating horrible threats, the crowd, with the two offenders in its midst, moved in the direction of Imvungayo.

But it seemed as though the wild, pealing shouts of rage and consternation were a very tocsin; for now from every kraal, near and far, the inhabitants came surging forth, streaming down the hillsides over the face of the plain like swarming ants—and before they reached Imvungayo the two whites seemed to move in the midst of a huge sea of gibing, infuriated faces, as the dark crowd, gathering volume, poured onward, rending the air with deafening shouts of execration and menace. But the royal guards barred the gate, suffering no entrance save on the part of the two white men, together with Nondwana and a few of the greater among the people.

"This is the tightest place we have been in yet," murmured Hazon. "To tread on the superstitions of any race is to thrust one's head into the jaws 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 one life would be required in atonement. But he and death had stared each other in the face so frequently that once more or less did not greatly matter.

On learning the cause of the tumult, Tyisandhlu had come forth, and now sat, as he frequently did, to administer justice at the head of the great central space. When the shouts of "bonga!" which greeted his presence had subsided, he ordered that the two whites should be brought forward.

This was the first time the latter had seen the king, and now, as they beheld his stately, commanding bearing, calm and judicial, both of them, Holmes especially, began to hope. They would explain the matter, and offer ample apologies. The owner of that fine, intellectual countenance, savage though he might be called, he, surely, had a soul above the debased superstitions of his subjects. Hitherto he had spared their lives—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 was the most fatal thing on earth.

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

There was a sternness, a menace even, in the full, deep voice, that dispelled all hope in the minds of the two thus under judgment. They had committed the one unpardonable sin. In vain Hazon elaborately explained the whole affair, diplomatically setting forth that the act being accidental, and done by strangers and white people, in ignorance, no ill-luck need befall the nation, as might be the case were the symbol of its veneration offended by its own people. The voice of the king was more stern than before—almost jeering.

"Accidental!" he repeated. "Even though it be so, accidents often bring greater evil in their results than the most deliberate wrong-doing—for such 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 one only was concerned in it, and that one is Nomtyeketye."

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

"I rule, therefore," went on the king, "that Nomtyeketye be taken hence to where atonement is offered. The other may depart from among us to his own land."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Pause, Nyonyoba! Pause and think!" said the king, speaking in a deep and solemn voice. "That which awaits you, if I grant your request, is of 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 save you there. It may be that the Sign itself cannot."

Now, what moved him to an act of heroic self-sacrifice, Laurence Stanninghame hardly knew himself. It may have been that he did not appreciate its magnitude. It may have been that he held more than a lingering belief that the king would find some secret means for his deliverance, whereas to his younger comrade no such way of escape lay open. Or was it that at this moment certain words, spoken long ago in warning, now stood forth clear and in flaming letters upon his brain: "Other men have gone up country with Hazon, but not one of them has ever returned!" He himself, abiding henceforward among the Ba-gcatya, and Holmes consigned to the mysterious doom, would not those warning words be carried out in all their fell fatality? But that after these years of hardening in the lurid school of bloodshed and ruthlessness he should be capable of sacrificing himself for another, through motives of impulsive generosity, Laurence could not have brought himself to believe. 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 depart unharmed—now, at once—and I will take the place of Nomtyeketye."

"That will I readily do, Nyonyoba, for I have no need of strangers here such as these," answered Tyisandhlu. Then, sadly, "And—you are resolved?"

"I am."

"Then it must be. For ye two, go in peace;—enough shall be given you for your journey."

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

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

"Why, what's happened?"

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

"But I can't allow it!" cried Holmes bewilderedly, as the truth began to dawn 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 probable he won't come to any harm. He stands in with them too well."

Holmes, more than half reassured, suffered himself to be persuaded—especially as he was powerless to do anything at all. But whether Hazon believed or not in what he had just advanced must remain forever locked up as a mystery in the breast of that inscrutable individual. One thing, however, he did not believe in, and that was in he himself suffering for the foolishness of other people.

Meanwhile Laurence, in the midst of his disguised executioners, was pursued by the howling and execrations of the crowds, which parted eagerly to make way for their passage. Outside on the open plain a vast mob of women had collected, yelling shrilly at him—and even pelting him with 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 of Lindela; and as he met her eyes full, the face which he had last looked upon softening and glowing with the wondrous light of love, was now wreathed into a horrible grin of hate and savagery.

"Yau! The Spider is hungry! Fare thee well, Umtagati,"[6] jeered the chief's daughter shrilly.

FOOTNOTE:

[6] Doer of witchcraft.



CHAPTER XXVI.

THE PLACE OF THE HORROR.

Was he awake—asleep and dreaming—or—dead?

All these questions did Laurence Stanninghame ask himself by turn as he recovered his confused and scattered senses; and there was abundant scope for such conjecture for, in truth, the place wherein he found himself was a strange one.

A wall of rock arose on either side of him—one straight, perpendicular, the other overhanging, arching out above the first. As he lay there in the semi-gloom, his first thought was that he was in a cave; a further glance, however, convinced him that the place was a gigantic fissure or rift. But how had he come there?

With an effort, for he still felt strangely languid and confused, he sent his mind back to the events of the previous day. Stay, though—was it the previous day? Somehow it seemed much longer ago. He remembered the long hurried march into the heart of the mountains with his gruesome escort. He remembered partaking of a plentiful meal and some excellent corn-beer; this he had done with a view to keeping up his strength, which he might need to the full. Then he remembered no more. The liquor had been drugged, he decided.

But to what end? To what end, indeed, was he there? How had he been brought there? He raised himself on his elbow and looked around.

He started. A large bundle lay beside him—something rolled up in a native blanket. Speedily undoing this, he discovered several grass baskets with lids. These contained pounded corn, such as is eaten with amati, or curdled milk—and, indeed, a large calabash of the latter, tightly stoppered, was among the stores. Well, whatever was to become of him, he was not to starve, anyhow. But was he only being fattened for a worse fate?

Then a thought struck him, which set all his pulses tingling into renewed life. He, too, had been sent out of the country, and these stores were to last him for, at any rate, part of his journey. True, the prospect was anything but an exhilarating one, seeing that he was unarmed, and had but the vaguest idea which way to turn; that the Ba-gcatya country was surrounded by ferocious and hostile races. But then, everything is relative in this world, and to a man who has spent hours of a long day journeying towards a mysterious, horrible, and certain death, the discovery of release and life, even with such slender chances, was joy after the boding dread which those long hours had held for him. Yes, that was it, of course. Tyisandhlu had not been faithless to the friendship between them. While openly consenting to his sacrifice, for even the king dare not, in such a matter, run counter to the feelings of the nation, Tyisandhlu had given secret orders that he should be smuggled out of the country.

Having arrived at this conclusion, it occurred to Laurence that he might as well explore a little. He would leave his stores here for the present; for a glance served to show that the rift or fissure ended there, so taking only a handful of the pounded corn, to eat as he walked, he started at once.

But there was a something, a cold creepiness in the air perhaps, that quelled much of his new-born hope. The rift seemed to form a kind of circle, for he walked on and on, ever trending to the right, never able to see more than a short distance in front; never able to behold the sky. There was something silently, horribly eloquent in the grim sameness of those tomblike walls. Just then, to his relief, the semi-gloom widened into light. The cliffs no longer overhung each other. A narrow strip of sky became visible, and, in front, the open daylight.

But with the joy of the discovery another sight met his gaze, a sight which sent the blood tingling through his veins. Yet, at first glance, it was not a particularly moving one. On the ground, at his feet, lay two unobtrusive-looking pebbles of a bluish gray. But as the next moment he held them in his hands, Laurence knew that he held in a moment what he had gone through years of privation and ruthless bloodshed to obtain—wealth, to wit. For these two unobtrusive pebbles were, in fact, splendid diamonds!

More of them? Of course there were. The exploration could wait a little longer. An accident might cut him off from this spot—might cut him off from such a chance forever. The hands of the seasoned adventurer trembled like those of a palsied old woman as he turned over the loose soil with his foot, for instrument of any kind he had none; and indeed, his agitation was not surprising, for in less than an hour Laurence was in possession of eight more splendid stones as large as the first, besides a number of small ones. He knew that he held that which should enable him to pass the remainder of his life in wealth and ease, could he once get safe away.

Could he? Ah, there came in the dead weight—the fulfilling of that strange irony of fate which well-nigh invariably wills that the good of life comes to us a trifle too late. For his search had brought him quite into the open day once more. Before him lay a valley—or rather hollow—of no great size, and—it was shut in—completely walled in by an amphitheatre of lofty cliffs.

Cliffs on all sides—at some points smooth and perpendicular, at others actually overhanging, at others, again, craggy and broken into terraces; but, even with the proper appliances, probably unscalable; that detail his practised eye could take in at a glance. How, then, should he hope to scale them, absolutely devoid, as he was, of so much as a stick—let alone a cord.

A cord? How had he been brought there? Had he been let down by a cord—or brought in by some secret entrance? the latter appeared more probable; and that entrance he would find,—would find and traverse, be its risks, be its terrors what they might. He had that upon him now which rendered life worth any struggle to preserve.

He stepped forth. The sky was over his head once more, clear and blue. That was something. By the slant of the sunrays he judged it must be about the middle of afternoon. The floor of the hollow was bumpy and uneven. Sparse and half-dry grass bents sprung from the soil, but no larger vegetation—no trees, no brush. Stranger still, there was no sign of life—even of bird or insect life. An evil, haunted silence seemed to brood over the great, crater-like hollow.

The silence became weighty, oppressive. Laurence, in spite of himself, felt it steal upon his nerves, and began to whistle a lively tune—as he walked slowly around, examining the cliffs, and every crack and cranny, with critical eye. The echoing notes reverberated weirdly among the brooding rocks. Suddenly his foot struck something—something hard. He looked down, and could not repress a start. There at his feet, grinning up at him, lay a human skull—nay, more, a well-nigh complete skeleton.

It was a gruesome find under the circumstances. Laurence, his nerves unstrung by the effects of the drug, and recent alternations of exultation and what was akin to despair, felt his flesh creep. What did it mean? Why, that no way of escape did this valley of death afford. This former victim—had he been placed there in the same way as himself, and, all means of exit failing, had succumbed to starvation when his provisions were exhausted? It looked that way. Bending down, he examined this sorry relic of humanity—examined it long and carefully. No bone was broken, the skeleton was almost complete; where it was not, the joints had fallen asunder without wrench, and the smooth round cranium showed not the slightest sign of abrasion or blow.

With sinking heart he pursued his search; yet somehow his attention now was given but languidly to potential means of exit which the faces of the cliffs might afford. Something seemed irresistibly to draw it to the ground. Ha! that was it. Again that horrid gleam of whitened bones. Another skeleton lay before him—and look, another, and another, at short distances apart. All these, like the first, were unshattered, uninjured; but—the whole area here was strewn with skulls, yellow and brown with age,—was strewn with bones also, mossy, mahogany-hued, and which crackled under his tread.

No one could be more ruthless, more callous; no man could view scenes of cruelty and bloodshed more unmoved than Laurence Stanninghame,—as we have shown,—or bear his part more coolly and effectively in the fiercest conflict; yet there was something in these silent human relics lying there bloodless; in the unnatural, haunted silence of this dreadful death-valley that caused his flesh to creep. Then he noticed that all were lying along the slope of a ridge which ran right across the hollow, dividing the floor of the same into two sections. He must needs go over that ridge to complete his explorations, yet now he shrank from it with awe and repugnance which in any other man he would have defined as little short of terror. What would await him on the other side?

Well, he must go through with it. Probably he would find more of such ghastly relics—that was all. But as he stood upon the apex of the ridge, with pulses somewhat quickened, no whitening bones met his gaze—fixed, dilated as that gaze was. The cliff in front—he thought to descry some faint chance of escape there, for its face was terraced and sloping backward somewhat. Moreover, it was rent by crannies and crevices, which, to a desperate and determined man, might afford hand and foothold.

And now for the first time it flashed upon Laurence that the mystery of "The Spider" stood explained. This horrible hole whence there was no escape—where men were thrust to die by inches as all of these had died before him—the repulsive and blood-sucking insect was in truth a fitting name allegorically for such a place, which swallowed up the lives of men. Besides, for all he knew, the configuration of the crater might, from above, resemble the tutelary insect of the Ba-gcatya. Yes; he had solved the mystery, as to that he was confident—the next thing to do was to find some way out, to break through the fatality of the place.

For the first time now his shoulder began to feel stiff and sore, where the stick hurled by Lindela had struck him. That was a bad preparation for the most perilous kind of cliff-climbing. Then the incident recalled to mind Lindela herself. Her sudden change of front was just such an oddity as any of the half-ironical incidents which go to make up the sum of life's experiences. Well, savage or civilized, human nature was singularly alike. A touch of superstition and the god of yesterday became the demon of to-day.

Thus musing, he came, suddenly and unexpectedly, upon another skeleton. But the effect of the discovery of this was even more disconcerting than that of the first. For, around, lay rotting rags of clothing, and a gold ornament or two. These remains he recognized at a glance. They were those of Lutali.

Yes, here was a broad bracelet of gold, curiously worked with the text of the Koran, which he had seen last on the Arab's sinewy wrist. Now that wrist was but a grisly bone. There, too, were parchment strips, also inscribed with Koran passages, and worn in a pouch as amulets. The identity of these remains was established beyond a doubt.

But the discovery inspired within him a renewed chill of despair. If Lutali had been unable to find means of escape, how should he? The Arab was a man of great readiness of resource, of indomitable courage, and powerfully built. If such a one had succumbed, why should he, Laurence, fare any better? He sat down once more, and, gazing upon the sorry remnant of his late confederate, began to think.

What a strange, vast, practical joke was that thing called life. Here was he at the end of it, and the very means of ending it for him had, at the same time, put him into possession of that which rendered it worth having at all. He felt the stones lying hard and angular in his pockets, he even took out one of them and turned it over sadly in his hands. He would gladly give a portion of these to be standing on the summit of yonder cliff instead of at the base; not yet had he come to feel he would gladly give them all. It was only of a continuance with what life had brought him that he should be there at all. He had sacrificed himself for another. The sublimity of the act even yet did not strike him. He regarded it as half-humorous, half-idiotic,—the first because his cynical creed was bolstered up by the consciousness that Holmes would never more than half appreciate it; the last, because—well—all unselfishness, all consideration, was idiotic.

Then it occurred to him that it would be time enough to sit down and dream when he had exhausted all expedients, and he had not explored that side of the hollow at all yet. To this end he moved forward. A very brief scrutiny, however, of the face of the cliff sufficed to show that for climbing purposes the cracks and crannies were useless.

Ha! What was this? A cave or a rift? Right in front of him the cliff yawned in just such a rift as the one in which he had awakened to find himself, only not on anything like such a large scale. Eagerly Laurence plunged into this. Here might be a way to the outer world—to safety.

He pressed onward in the semi-gloom. The rocks darkened overhead, forming, in effect, a cave. And now it seemed that he could hear a strange, soft, scraping, a kind of sighing noise. A puff-adder was his first thought, looking around for the reptile. But no such reptile lay in his path, and he had no means of striking a light. With a dull shrinking, his flesh creeping with a strange foreboding, as with the consciousness of some fearful prescience, he decided to push on, being careful, however, to tread warily. This was no time for sticking at trifles.

But as he advanced the air became foetid with a strange, pungent, nauseous odour. There were lateral clefts branching off the main gallery, but of no depth, and to these he had given but small notice. Now, however, something occurred of so appalling a nature that he stood as one turned to stone.

There shot out from one of these lateral recesses two enormous tentacles—black, wavy as serpents, covered with hair, armed at the extremity with a strong double claw. They reached forth noiselessly to within a couple of yards of where he stood, then two more followed with a quick, wavy jerk. And now behind these, a head, as large as that of a man, black, hairy, bearing a strange resemblance to the most awful and cruel human face ever stamped with the devil's image—whose dull, goggle eyes, fixed on the appalled ones of its discoverer, seemed to glow and burn with a truly diabolical glare.

Laurence stood—staring into the countenance of this awful thing—his blood curdled to ice within him, his hair literally standing up. Was it the Fiend himself who had taken such unknown and fearful shape to appear before him here in the gloom of this foul and loathsome cavern? Then, as his eyes grew more and more used to the dim shades, he made out a huge body crouched back in the recess, half hidden by a quivering mass of black, hairy tentacles.

For a few moments thus he stood—then with a cry of horror he threw out his hand as though instinctively to ward off an attack. The four tentacles already protruded were quickly withdrawn, and the fearful creature, whatever it was, seemed to shrink back into the cranny. One last look upon the hairy heap of moving, writhing horror—upon those dreadful demon eyes, and this man, who had faced death again and again without shrinking, now felt it all he could do to resist an impulse to turn and flee like a hunted hare. He did, however, resist it—yet it was with flesh shuddering and knees trembling beneath him that he withdrew, step by step, backwards, until he stood once more in the full light of day.



CHAPTER XXVII.

THE HORROR.

Vampire—insect—devil—what was the thing? From the length and thickness of those frightful tentacle-like legs, stretching forth from the cranny—Laurence—who had not halted until he had gained the ridge dividing the hollow—estimated that the creature when spread out must be eight or ten feet in diameter.

He looked back. It had not followed him from the cave. Why had it not? Was it waiting for night—to steal upon him in the darkness, to wreath around him those terrible tentacles, and to drain his life-blood?

Now, indeed, all stood clear. "The Spider" was no allegorical term, but literal fact. That frightful monster with which he had just come face to face was indeed the demon-god of the Ba-gcatya! It was actually fed with living men, in accordance with some dark and mysterious superstition held by that otherwise fine race. Now the fate of those whose skeletons lay around stood accounted for. They had been devoured by this unimaginable horror. Alive? It was almost certain—possibly when weakened by starvation. Yet a gruesome thought entered his mind. Why had an abundance of food been lowered with him into this hell-pit? Did not the circumstance make as though it was in their full vigour that the monster was designed to seize its victims—and in that event, with what an extent of strength and fell ferocity must it not be endowed?

But what was this thing? Laurence had seen spiders of every variety, huge and venomous, and of grisly size, yet nothing like this. Why, the creature was as large as a bear nearly! It must be some beast hitherto unknown to natural history; yet those awful tentacles—joints, hair, everything—could not but belong to an insect—were, in fact, precisely as the legs of a huge tarantula, magnified five hundred-fold. What ghastly and blood-curdling freak of nature could have produced such a monstrosity as this? Why, the very sight of the awful thing huddled up, black, within the gloom of the cranny, the horrid tentacles—a hundred-fold more repulsive, more blood-curdling than though they actually were so many serpents—moving and writhing in a great quivering, hairy, intertwined mass—was in itself a sight to haunt his dreams until his dying day, did he live another fifty years. What must it mean, then, to realize that he was actually shut in—escape impossible—with the deliberate purpose of being devoured by this vampire, this demon, even as all these others had been devoured before him?

At this juncture of his meditations his mind became alive to two discoveries—one, that he had gained the farther end of the ridge than that by which he had crossed; the other, that immediately before and beneath him, just over the slope of the ridge, lay the body of a man.

Yes—the body of a man, not the skeleton of one. That it was that of a dead man he could see at a glance—also that it was one of the Ba-gcatya. With a shudder he remembered the luckless wretch he had seen dragged away but a day or two before his own seizure—whether for evil-doing or as a customary sacrifice he had been condemned to this, Laurence had not inquired at the time. Casting one more look at the cave, and satisfying himself that the monster had not emerged, Laurence went down to examine the body.

It was that of a man in the prime of life—and wearing the head-ring. It was lying on its back, the throat upturned and protruding. And then Laurence shudderingly noticed two round gaping orifices at the base of the throat, clearly where the great nippers of the monster had punctured. The limbs, too, were scratched and scored as though with claws; and upon the dead face was such an awful expression of the very extremity of horror and dread as the spectator, accustomed as he was to such sights, had never beheld stamped on the human countenance before. And beholding it now, Laurence Stanninghame felt that the perspiration was oozing upon him at every pore, for he realized that he was looking upon a foresight of his own fate; for was he not that most perfectly and completely helpless of all God's creatures—an unarmed man!

He had not so much as a stick or a pocket-knife to resist the onslaught of this blood-drinking monster—no, not even a boot, for it flashed across his mind at that moment that a good iron-shod heel might be better than nothing. He was wearing only a low-soled pair of ordinary velschoenen—hide shoes, to wit. There were not even stones lying about the ground, save very small ones, and he had no means of loosening rock slabs large enough to serve as weapons. There was no place of refuge to climb into afforded by ledges or pinnacles of rock, and even were there, why, the thing could surely come up after him as easily as the common tarantula could run up a wall. Nothing is more completely demoralizing than the helplessness of an unarmed man. With his Express—or his six-shooter—this one would have regarded the situation in the light of a wholly new and adventurous excitement—with even a large strong-bladed knife he would have been willing to take his chances. But he was totally unarmed. It seemed to Laurence that in that brief while he had lived a lifetime of mortal fear.

Then with a mighty effort he pulled himself together. He would return to where he had left his stores ere commencing the exploration. Nobody ever yet improved a situation of peril by starving himself. Yet as he wended his way up the long chasm wherein he had first awakened to life, it was with a feeling of shuddering repulsion. The place bore such a close resemblance now to that other cave; yet here, at any rate, he knew there was nothing.

He opened the corn baskets and the calabash of amasi, and made a fairly good meal. Then, by the glooming shades of the overhanging rock, he judged that daylight was waning. Out into the open once more—the open air might render such a life-and-death struggle with the monster a trifle less horrible than here, shut in by these tomb-like rock walls.

The gray of the brief twilight was upon the faces of the surrounding cliffs, which soon faded into misty gloom. Only the stars, leaping into the misty gloom—only the stars, leaping forth into the inky sky, shed an indistinct light into this vault of horror and of death. He was shut in here—and shut in with this awful thing which should find him out during the hours of darkness. And, marvellous to tell, a sudden drowsiness came upon him—and whether the effects of the drug still lingered about him, or was it the reaction from an overstrained mind? he actually slept—slept hard and dreamlessly.

Suddenly he awoke—awoke with the weight of an indefinable terror upon him. A broad moon in its third quarter was sailing aloft in the heavens, flooding the hollow with its ghostly light. Instinctively he sprang to his feet. As he did so there came upon him a resistless and shuddering fear akin to that which had paralyzed him in the cave. What was it? The magnetic proximity of the awful thing stealthily stalking him? No. The reason now lay clear.

In the moonlight he could make out, shadowy and indistinct, the corpse he had found during the afternoon. But, as he gazed, a change seemed to have come over it. It had increased in size—had more than doubled its bulk. Heavens! the dark mass began to move—to heave—and then he thought the very acme of horror was reached. Not one body was there, but two. Spread out over the human body was that of the monster. Now he could make out almost every detail of its hideous shape, the convulsive working of the frightful tentacles as it devoured its lifeless prey. He could stand it no longer. His brain was bursting; he must do something. Raising his voice he shouted—shouted as assuredly he had never shouted in his life. There was a maniacal ring in his voice. He felt as though he must rush right at this thing of fear. Was he really going mad? Well, it began to look like it.

But the effect was prompt. The awful vampire, gathering its horrible legs under it, sprang clear of the carcass. It stood for a moment in rigid immobility, then ere the maniacal echoes of that shout had quavered into silence among the cliffs, it shoggled over the ridge and was lost to view.

The night wore through somehow, and if ever mortal eyes were rejoiced by the light of dawn, assuredly they were those of Laurence Stanninghame, as once more he found himself the sole living tenant of that ghastly place of death. Yet, to what end? One more dreary day in his rock prison, another night of horror—and—the same brooding fate awaiting! He could not remain awake forever. Even though the sound of his voice thus unexpectedly lifted up had alarmed the vampire, it would not always do so. Still, with the light of the new-born day after the night of terror came some medium of relief.

Once more he drew upon his provision stores. While repacking them his gaze rested on the native blanket with the wild idea of manufacturing therefrom a cord. But to do this he needed a knife. The stuff was of material too stout for tearing.

A knife! Ha! With the thought came another. It was not worth much, but it was something,—and with that came a hard, fierce, desperate hope. The broad gold bracelet which still encircled Lutali's skeleton wrist—could not that be banged and flattened into something sharp and serviceable? It was hard metal, anyway.

Still the grim horror lurked within its cave—still it came not forth. It was waiting until another night should embolden it to seize its defenceless human prey. He glanced upwards. There were still from two to three hours of daylight. In a very few moments he had reached the skeleton of the Arab, and, snapping off the bony wrist without hesitation, the bracelet was within his grasp.

But as he looked around for some means of flattening it, there flashed in upon him another idea—a perfectly heaven-sent idea, grisly under ordinary circumstances, as it might be. The bracelet was large and massive, and for it a new use suggested itself. Critically examining the skeletons, he selected two with the largest and strongest leg-bones. These he soon wrenched off, and, running one through the gold bracelet, he jammed the latter fast against the thicker end—binding it as tightly as he could to the bulging joint with a strip torn from his clothing. With a thrill of unutterable joy he realized that he was no longer unarmed. He had manufactured a tolerably effective mace. He swung it through the air two or three times with all his force. Such a blow would strike a human enemy dead;—was this thing so heavily armour-plated as to be proof against a similar stroke?

With one idea came another. These bones might be further utilized, they might be splintered and sharpened into daggers. No sooner thought of than carried out. And now the skeletons underwent the most ruthless desecration. Several were wrenched asunder ere he had selected half a dozen of the most serviceable—and these he hammered to the required size with his newly constructed mace—sharpening them on the rough face of the rock. And then, as with a glow of satisfaction he sat down to rest and contemplate his handiwork—he almost laughed over the grim whimsicality of it. Did ever mortal man go into close conflict armed in such fashion—he wondered—with club and dagger manufactured out of the bones of men?

Should he take the bull by the horns, and advance boldly to attack the monster in its own den? He shrank from this. The gloom of the cavern invested the thing with an additional element of terror, besides the more practical consideration that a confined space might hinder him in the use of his bizarre and impromptu weapons. He would need all the freedom of hand and eye. Once more he took out the metal box, and fed his eyes long and earnestly upon its contents. The Sign of the Spider! Was there indeed an influence about this trinket—or rather, the love which had hallowed it—which was potent to stand between him and peril in the direst extremity, even as it had stepped between him and certain death at the spears of the victorious Ba-gcatya? Slightly improved as was his helpless condition, yet he could not hope. Even if he succeeded in slaying the monster, how should he escape from this death-trap, this rock-prison? The second day closed.

How many hours of darkness should precede moonrise he could but feebly guess. Grasping his strangely fashioned club in his right hand, and the strongest and sharpest of his bone daggers in the left—he stood, his back to the rock wall, so as not to be taken in the rear; never relaxing for a moment in vigilance, his ears strained to their utmost tension, his eyeballs striving to pierce the black gloom. More than once a sound as of stealthy, ghostly scrapings caused his heart to beat like a hammer; and he seemed to see the horrible eyes of the monster flaming luridly out of the darkness; but still the silent hours went by, unbroken by any disturbance.

Ha! The gloom of the hollow was lightening—and soon the rim of the great moon peeped over the cliff behind him. But his attention was rivetted now upon something before him—a something, huge and black and shadowy—which moved. The horror was coming over the ridge.

It came,—running stealthily a few yards,—then halting,—then running again. It passed the body of its last victim, and came running on. Laurence stood transfixed, spellbound, with loathing and repulsion, as he gazed upon the huge hairy legs, listening to the scraping 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 horny armour, and drove the bone dagger into its body—drove it into the very butt.

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 massive band of gold which constituted 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 noble knob-stick, but it was like smiting the hardest kind of tortoise shell. 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 superstitions, 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 grass 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 quantity 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.

"Ha!—now you are once more as you ought to be," cried Lindela, gleefully clapping her hands together. "You who are stronger than—that which is down there," falling into the Zulu custom of refraining directly to mention that which is held in awe. "Without weapons. What are you now with them? Great—great! To defeat the Spider—armed only with the bones of men. Whau! That was great indeed—magnificent!"

"Yet I think I will silence forever that horror," said Laurence, stepping to the brink of the cliff and peering down into the awful hollow. "Yes, there the beast is; I will risk a long shot," and he sighted the carbine.

But in a moment Lindela's arms were around him, pinioning his to his sides.

"Not so, beloved," she whispered earnestly. "Not so; the Black Ones who wait on the Spider frequently come to look down into his haunt, even when they do not bring offerings of men. If they find him slain they will know you have escaped, and will pursue; for which reason it is well—well, indeed, that you did not quite slay him with those marvellous weapons, the bones of men. Further, they might hear the sound of the fire-weapon, and know where to find us. Come, we have far to travel."

This was unanswerable. Laurence stood for a few moments gazing down into the fearsome place which held this shuddering mystery. Was it real? Was he dreaming? Were those hours of terror and despair spent down there but some gigantic nightmare? He passed his hand over his eyes—then looked again. The thing was real. But now he could no longer see the horrid shape—black and grisly. The creature must have withdrawn into its ghastly den—to die. The wounds which he had inflicted upon it were surely too deep, too strongly dealt, to be aught but mortal. The Spider would no more drink the blood—feed on the flesh of men. Then he turned to follow Lindela.

The latter had already loaded herself with the bundle of wraps and provisions. To his suggestion that they should, at any rate, halve the load, Lindela laughed in scorn.

"A man's work is to carry his weapons, and, when needed, use them," she answered. "To bear loads—and this is a light one indeed—is woman's work—not work for one who has proved too great even for the Spider."

Then, as they travelled down the mountain side in the fresh cool night air, she told him of all that had befallen since he had been hauled to his mysterious and awful doom. The thoughtless act of Holmes had necessitated the destruction of Nondwana's kraal there and then; and, indeed, the king's brother was more than dissatisfied with the clemency extended to the other two white men. But the word of Tyisandhlu, once given, stood. They had been sent out of the country under a strong armed escort, which was under orders to conduct them to the great town of an Arab chief, with whom El Khanac had blood brotherhood.

How had she found out the mystery of the Spider? Was it known to all the nation? It was known to very few, she explained. The Black ones who waited upon the Spider were a mysterious order—so mysterious, indeed, that none knew exactly who were members of it and who were not. Nor could she tell how the strange and gruesome cult first originated, save that it was dimly whispered that the Ba-gcatya had taken it over from the nation they had driven out, and that in accordance with an ancient prophecy uttered by a famous magician at the time of their flight from Zululand. But as she told of her resolve to rescue him at all risks, even so long ago as when, by overhearing her father's talk, she learned that this doom was to be his in any case, Laurence felt himself grow strangely soft towards her. Savage or not, Nondwana's daughter was a splendid character in the whole-hearted devotion of her love; heroic was hardly the word for it. And as she went on to tell how she had devoted herself entirely to finding out the locality of the dreaded spot, learning the way to it by stealthily following on the footsteps of that grim order when it was actually engaged in conveying thither another human victim, risking her life at every step,—and not her life merely, but incurring the certainty of the same fearful doom in the event of discovery,—telling it, too, in the most simple way, and as though the act were the most natural thing in the world, Laurence realized that he might have done worse than throw in his lot with this loftily descended daughter of a splendid race of kingly barbarians, had circumstances been ordered otherwise.

But even while thus listening, while thus thinking, another vein of thought was running parallel in his mind. Those insignificant-looking stones, which he had picked up down there, represented wealth—ample wealth; and with it had come a feverish longing to enjoy the comforts, the pleasures, the delights which civilization afforded to those who possessed it. Yet, his entering upon such enjoyment, if it were ever effected,—as at that moment it seemed in a fair way to be,—he owed to Lindela. What was to become of her, for she could never return to her nation? She had thrown away everything, this high-born daughter of a race of kings; had risked her life daily, to save the life of a stranger—and that for love. Yes, that was love indeed! he thought. She was a brown-skinned savage, but she was a splendid woman—with mind and character as noble as her own magnificent physique. She would be a delightful, a perfect companion during those wild, free forest marches—day after day, night after night, fraught with peril and hardship at every step, but—how would civilization affect her? Would it not ruin that grand character, even as it had ruined really noble natures before her,—for there is such a thing as the "noble savage," although we grant the product to be a scarce one. And with all this was entwined the thought of Lilith Ormskirk.