The Sign of the Spider

CHAPTER XIV.

A DREAM

Under the shade of a large tree-fern a man is lying asleep.

Around the wilderness spreads in rolling undulation, open here for the most part, though dotted with clumps of bush and trees, which seem to have become detached from the dark line of forest. This, on the one hand, stretches away into endless blue; on the other a broad expanse of water – apparently a fine river, actually a chain of lagoons – with reed-fringed banks; and here and there a low spit, where red flamingoes roost lazily on one leg. Beyond this again lies an unbroken line of forest.

The man is arrayed in the simple costume of the wilderness – a calico shirt, and moleskin trousers protected by leather leggings. A broad-brimmed hat lies under his head, to which, indeed, it serves as sole pillow. He is heavily armed. The right hand still grips an Express rifle in mute suggestion of one accustomed to slumber in the midst of peril. A revolver in a holster rests beside him, and in his leathern belt is a strong sheath knife. Now and again he moves in his sleep, and at such times his unarmed hand seems instinctively to seek out something which is concealed from view, possibly something which is suspended round his neck by that light but strong chain. Thus hour after hour rolls over him, as he slumbers on in the burning equatorial heat.

The sleeper turns again uneasily, and as he does so his hand again seeks the steel chain just visible through his open shirt, and, instinctively working down it, closes over that which is secured thereto; then, as though the effect is lulling, once more he is still again, slumbering easily, peacefully.

The sun's rays, slanting now, dart in beneath the scanty shade of the tree-fern, and as they burn upon the dark face, bronzed and hardened by climate and toil, the sleeper's lips are moving, and a peculiarly soft and wistful expression seems to rest upon the firm features. Then his eyes open wide. For a moment he lies, staring up at the green fronds which afford shade no longer, then starts up into a sitting posture. And simultaneous with the movement here and there a faint circular ripple widens on the slimy surface of the lagoon, as each of those dark specks, representing the snout of a basking crocodile, vanishes.

Laurence Stanninghame's outward aspect has undergone some change since last we beheld it, now more than two years ago. The expression of the dark, firm face, burned and bronzed by an equatorial sun, heavily bearded too, has become hard and ruthless, and there is a quick alertness in the penetrating glance of the clear eyes which tells of an ever-present familiarity with peril. Even the movement of sitting up, of suddenly awakening from sleep, yet being wide awake in a moment, contains unconsciously more than a suggestion of this.

A rapid, careful look on all sides. Nothing is stirring in the sultry, penetrating heat; the palmetto thatch of clustering huts away beyond the opposite bank might contain no life for all of it they show. Hardly a bird twittering in the reeds but does so half heartedly. The man's face softens again, taking on the expression it wore while he slept.

While he slept! Why could he not have slept on forever, he thought, his whole being athrill with the memory revived by his dreams? For his dreams had been sweet – wildly, entrancingly sweet. Seldom, indeed, were such vouchsafed to him; but when they were their effect would last, would last vividly. He would treasure up their recollection, would go back upon it.

Now, slumbering there in the torrid heat, by the reed-fringed, crocodile-haunted lagoon, his dreams had wafted him into a more than Paradise. Eyes, starry with a radiant love-light, had laughed into his; around his neck the twining of arms, and the soft, caressing touch of soothing hands upon his life-weary head; the whisper of love-tones, deep, burning, tremulous, into his ear. And from this he had awakened, had awakened to the reality – to the weird and depressing surroundings of human life in its most cruel and debased form; to the recollection of scenes of recurring and hideous peril, of pitiless atrocity, which seemed to render the burning, brassy glare even as the glare of hell; and to the consciousness of similar scenes now immediately impending. Yet the remembrance of that sleeping vision shut him in, surrounded him as with a very halo, sweet, fragrant, enthralling, rolling around his soul as a cloud of intoxicating ether.

Upon a temperament such as that of Laurence Stanninghame the life of the past two years was bound to tell. The hot African glow, the adventurous life, with peril continually for a fellow-traveller, a familiarity with weird and shocking deeds, an utter indifference to human suffering and human life, had strangely affected his inner self. Callous to the woes of others, yet high strung to a degree, his nature at this time presented a stage of complexity which was utterly baffling. That mesmeric property to which Hazon had alluded more than once as one of the effects of the interior was upon him too. It seemed as though he had somehow passed into another world, so dulled was all recollection of his former life, all desire to recall it. Yet one memory remained undimmed.

"Lilith, my soul!" he murmured, his eyes wandering over the brassy, glaring expanse of water and dried-up reed-bed, as though to annihilate space and distance. "Lilith, my life! It is time I looked once more upon that dear face which rendered my dreams so sweet."

His hand, still clasping something within his breast, was drawn forth, that which hung by the steel chain still inclosed within it. A small, flat metal box it was, oblong in shape, and shutting so tightly that at first glance it was hard to see where it opened at all. But open it did, for now he is holding what it contains – holding it lovingly, almost reverently, in the palm of his hand. It is a little case, green velvet worked with flowers, and in the center, spreading fantastically in spidery pattern in dark maroon, is a monogram – Lilith's. And in like manner is this same monogram inlaid upon the lid.

Two tiny portraits it contains when opened – photographic portraits, small, yet clear and delicate as miniatures. Lilith's eyes gaze forth, seeming to shine from the inanimate cardboard as though with the love-light of gladness; Lilith's beautiful form, erect in characteristic attitude, the head slightly thrown back, the sweet lips compressed, just a touch of sadness in their serenity, as though dwelling upon the recollection of that last parting; even the soft curling waves of hair, rippling back from the temples, are lifelike in the clearness of the portrait.

The strong, sweet dream-wave still enclouding his brain, Laurence stands gazing upon these, and his heart is as though enwrapped with a dull tightening pain.

"Sorceress! and does the spell still enthral me here?" he murmurs, "here, and after all this time. Have you forgotten me? Perhaps. No, that cannot be and yet – Time! Time dulls everything. Time brings changes. Perhaps even the memory of me is waning, is becoming dulled."

But the softening love-light in the pictured eyes seems to contradict the conjecture. Here, in the hot brassy glare of the far wilderness, in the haunts of bloodshed and wrong, that sweet, pure image seems clothed as with a divinity to his hungry gaze.

"Others can see you in life; others can hear the music of your voice, my beloved; others can look into the light of those eyes, can melt to the radiance of your smile, while I – only the image is mine, the tiny oblong of hard inanimate cardboard," he murmurs, in a tone that is half weariful, half passionate. "And now for the words!"

A slip of folded paper occupies the side of the little tin box. This he extracts and unfolds with a touch that is almost reverent, and, as his eyes wander over the writing, his every faculty of soul and mind and being is concentrated in rapt love upon each word. For not every day will he suffer his eyes to rest upon them, lest too great familiarity with them should dull them with a mechanical nature when seen so often. They are kept for rare occasions, and now, his waking thoughts sweet with the influence of the recent dream, he reckons just such an occasion.

The history of the box, the portraits, the letter, was a strange one. After that last parting, as Laurence was wending his way in the darkness, he became aware that his breast pocket contained something which was not there before. He drew it forth. It was small, flat, hard, oblong. By the light of successive vestas he proceeded to investigate, and there, in the flickering glow, Lilith's sweet eyes gazed out at him from the cardboard, daintily framed within the work of her fingers, even as here in the burning glare of the equatorial sun; and there, too, within the box, lay a folded slip of paper covered with her handwriting – her last words to him, drawing out, perpetuating the echo of her last spoken ones. With a thrill of love and pain, he had stood there in the darkness until his last vesta had burned out, and then the letter was not half read, but from that moment the box and its contents had rested upon his heart day and night – through scenes of blood and of woe, through every conceivable phase of hardship and starvation and peril – had rested there as a charm, or amulet, which should shield him from harm. And as such, indeed, its donor had intended it.

And now his eyes, wandering over the paper, as though devouring every word, are nearing the end:

"Does this come as a surprise, my darling – a very sweet surprise? [it ran.] I mean it to be that. 'Is it for good or for ill, this love of ours?' you have said. Surely for good. Keep, then, this image of me, my beloved. Never part with it, day or night, and may it ever, by the very strength of my love for you, be as a talisman – a 'charm' – to stand between you and all peril, as you say the mental image of me has already done; how, I cannot see, but it is enough for me that you say so. And the consciousness that I should have been the means of averting evil from you is sweet, unutterably so. May it continue, and strengthen me as it will mysteriously shield you, while we are far apart. My Laurence! my ideal! – yes, you are that; the very moment my eyes first met the firm full gaze of yours I recognized it. I knew what you were, and my heart went out to you."

The blood surged hotly, in a dark flush, beneath Laurence Stanninghame's bronzed face, as he pictured the full force and passion of those parting utterances murmured into his ear instead of confided only to cold, inanimate paper; then the demon of cynicism ingrained within him came uppermost with hateful and haunting suggestions:

"She is safe? Yes. But those words were penned more than two years ago. More than two years ago! That is a long time for one in the full glow of her glorious youth. More than two years ago! And in the joy and delight of living, what charm has the memory – the daily fading memory – of the absent for such as she? Think of it, oh, fool, not yet free from the shackles of the last illusion! Think of circumstances, of surroundings, of temperament, above all, of such a temperament as hers! Is your mature knowledge of life to go for nothing that you are so easily fooled? Ha, Ha!"

Thus laughed the demon voice in mocking gibe. But he – no, he would not listen; he would stifle it. Those words were the outcome of one love – the love of a lifetime, and nothing less.

Suddenly, with multifold splash, and a great winnowing of wings, a flight of cranes and egrets arose from the bank some little distance farther down. Dark forms were moving among the reeds. All the instincts of a constant familiarity with peril alert within him, Laurence had in a moment replaced the case and its contents. His Express was grasped in readiness as he peered forth eagerly from his place of concealment. He was the crafty, ruthless slaver once more.

Then the expression, stealthy, resolute, which his discovery had evoked, faded, giving way to one of half-interested curiosity, as he saw that the potential enemies – more or less redoubtable assailants – were merely a few small boys, wandering along the reed-fringed bank, jabbering light-heartedly as they strolled.

Suddenly there was a splash, a smothered cry, and a loud burst of shrill laughter. The sooty imps were dancing and capering with glee, gazing at and chaffing one of their number who had fallen from the bank – high and perpendicular there – into the water among the reeds. But almost as suddenly the cachinations turned to a sharp yell of terror and warning. The reeds swayed in a quivering line of undulation, as though something were moving through them – something swift and mighty and terrible – and so it was. The black boy, who could swim like a fish, had thrown himself clear of the reeds, deeming his chances better in the open water, but after him, its long grisly snout and cruel beady eyes flush with the surface, glided a large crocodile.

Half instinctively the unseen spectator put up his piece, then dropped it again. He might shoot the reptile, but what then? All their plans would be upset – the villages would be alarmed, and his own life greatly jeopardized. Too steep a price by far to pay, to save one wretched little black imp from being devoured by a crocodile, he told himself. The road to wealth did not lie that way; and the cruel sneer that drooped his lips as he lowered his weapon was not good to behold, as he stood up to witness the end of this impromptu hunt, whose quarry was human.

The boys on the bank were shouting and screaming, partly for help, partly in the hope of scaring the hideous saurian. That wily reptile, however, heeded them not one atom. His great jaws opened and closed with a snap – but not on the crunch of human flesh, not on the crackle of human bones. The wretched little native, with incredible dexterity, had swerved and dived, just eluding the hungry jaws by no more than a hair's breadth. But to what avail?

For the smooth surface of the lagoon was now rippling into long furrow-like waves. Dark objects were gliding through the water with noiseless rapidity, converging on the point where the human quarry had now risen to breathe. More of the dreadful reptiles, with which the lagoons were swarming, had found out there was prey, and were bearing down to obtain their share. From his concealment, Laurence could see it all – the glistening of the hideous snouts, the round woolly head and staring, terror-stricken eyeballs of the miserable little victim. Then, with a wild, piercing, soul-curdling shriek, the latter disappeared, and there arose to the surface a boil of foam, bubbling upon the slimy water in a bright red stain. Below, in the depths, the crocodiles were rending asunder their unexpected prey.