The Web of the Golden Spider

Though the impact jarred him till he felt dizzy, he stumbled forward again; and yet again. The lock gave and, thrusting the girl in, he swung the door to behind them.

They found themselves in a small, paved yard. Fumbling about this, Wilson discovered in the corner several pieces of joist, and these he propped against the door. Then he sank to the ground exhausted.

In spite of his bruised body, his tired legs, and aching head, he felt a flush of joy; he was no longer at bay. A stout barrier stood between him and his pursuers. And when he felt a warm, damp hand seeking his he closed over it with a new sense of victory. He was now not only a fighter, but a protector. He had not yet been able to see enough of the girl’s features to form more than the vaguest conception of what she was. Yet she was not impersonal; he felt that he could have found her again in a crowd of ten thousand. She was a frailer creature who had come to him for aid.

He gripped her fingers firmly as the muffled sound of voices came to their ears. The officers had evidently passed and were now returning, balked in their search. Pausing before the little door, they discussed the situation with the interest of hunters baffled of their game.

“Faith, Murphy, they must have got over this wall somewhere.”

“Naw, they couldn’t. There’s glass atop the lingth of ut, an’ there isn’t a door wot isn’t locked.”

“I dunno. I dunno. This wan here–”

He seized the latch and shook the door, kicking it stoutly with his heavy boots.

Inside, Wilson had risen to his feet, armed with a short piece of the joist, his lips drawn back so tight as to reveal his teeth. Wilson had never struck a man in his life before to-night, but he knew that if that door gave he should batter until he couldn’t stand. He would hit hard–mercilessly. He gripped the length of wood as though it were a two-handled scimitar, and waited.

“D’ ye mind now that it’s a bit loose?” said Murphy.

He put his knee against it and shoved, but the joist held firm. The man didn’t know that he was playing with the certainty of a crushed skull.

“Aw, come on!” broke in the other, impatiently. “They’ll git tired and crawl out. We can wait for thim at th’ ind. Faith, ut’s bitter cowld here.”

The man and the girl heard their steps shuffle off, and even caught the swash of their knees against the stiff rubber coats, so near they passed. The girl, who had been staring with strained neck and motionless eyes at the tall figure of the waiting man at her side, drew a long breath and laid her hand upon his knee.

“They’ve gone,” she said.

Still he did not move, but stood alert, suspicious, his long fingers twined around his weapon, fearing with half-savage passion some new ruse.

“Don’t stand so,” she pleaded. “They’ve gone.”

The stick dropped from his hand, and he took off his hat to let the rain beat upon his hot head.

She crowded closer to his side, shivering with the cold, and yet more at peace than she had been that weary, long day. The world, which had stretched to fearsome distances, shrank again to the compass of this small yard, and a man stood between her and the gate to fight off the forces which had surged in upon her. She was mindful of nothing else. It was enough that she could stand for even a moment in the shelter of his strength; relax senses which discovered danger only to shrink back, powerless to ward it off. A woman without her man was as helpless as a soldier without his arms.

The rain soaked through to her skin, and she was faint with hunger; yet she was content to wait by his side in silence, in the full confidence that he with his man strength would stride over the seemingly impossible and provide. She was stripped to the naked woman heart of her, forced back to the sheer clinging instinct. She was simplified to the merely feminine as he was to the merely masculine. No other laws governed them but the crude necessity to live–in freedom.

Before them loomed the dripping wall, beyond that the road which led to the waiting fists, beyond that the wind-swept, gray waves; behind them rose the blank house with its darkened windows.

“Well,” he said, “we must go inside.”

He crossed the yard to one of the ground-floor windows and tried to raise it. As he expected, it was locked. He thrust his elbow through a pane just above the catch and raised it. He climbed in and told her to wait until he opened the door. It seemed an hour before he reappeared, framed in the dark entrance. He held out his hand to her.

“Come in,” he bade her.

She obeyed, moving on tiptoe.

CHAPTER II

Chance Provides

For a moment after he had closed the door they stood side by side, she pressing close to him. She shivered the length of her slight frame. The hesitancy which had come to him with the first impress of the lightless silence about them vanished.

“Come,” he said, taking her hand, “we must find a light and build a fire.”

He groped his way back to the window and closed it, drawing the curtain tight down over it. Then he struck a match and held it above his head.

At the flash of light the girl dropped his hand and shrank back in sudden trepidation. So long as he remained in the shadows he had been to her only a power without any more definite personality than that of sex. Now that she was thrown into closer contact with him, by the mere curtailing of the distances around and above her, she was conscious of the need of further knowledge of the man. The very power which had defended her, unless in the control of a still higher power, might turn against her. The match flickered feebly in the damp air, revealing scantily a small room which looked like a laundry. It was enough, however, to disclose a shelf upon which rested a bit of candle. He lighted this.

She watched him closely, and as the wick sputtered into life she grasped eagerly at every detail it revealed. She stood alert as a fencer before an unknown antagonist. Then he turned and, with this steadier light above his head, stepped towards her.

She saw eyes of light blue meeting her own of brown quite fearlessly. His lean face and the shock of sandy hair above it made an instant appeal to her. She knew he was a man she could trust within doors as fully as she had trusted him without. His frame was spare but suggestive of the long muscles of the New Englander which do not show but which work on and on with seemingly indestructible energy. He looked to her to be strong and tender.

She realized that he in his turn was studying her, and held up her head and faced him sturdily. In spite of her drenched condition she did not look so very bedraggled, thanks to the simple linen suit she had worn. Her jet black hair, loose and damp, framed an oval face which lacked color without appearing unhealthy. The skin was dark–the gypsy dark of one who has lived much out of doors. Both the nose and the chin was of fine and rather delicate modeling without losing anything of vigor. It was a responsive face, hinting of large emotions rather easily excited but as yet latent, for the girlishness was still in it.

Wilson found his mouth losing its tenseness as he looked into those brown eyes; found the strain of the situation weakening. The room appeared less chill, the vista beyond the doorway less formidable. Here was a good comrade for a long road–a girl to meet life with some spirit as it came along.

She looked up at him with a smile as she heard the drip of their clothes upon the floor.

“We ought to be hung up to dry,” she laughed.

Lowering the candle, he stepped forward.

“We’ll be dry soon,” he answered confidently. “What am I to call you, comrade?”

“My name is Jo Manning,” she answered with a bit of confusion.

“And I am David Wilson,” he said simply. “Now that we’ve been introduced we’ll hunt for a place to get dry and warm.”

He shivered.

“I am sure the house is empty. It feels empty. But even if it isn’t, whoever is here will have to warm us or–fight!”

He held out his hand again and she took it as he led the way along the hall towards the front of the house. He moved cautiously, creeping along on tiptoe, the light held high above his head, pausing every now and then to listen. They reached the stairs leading to the upper hallway and mounted these. He pushed open the door, stopping to listen at every rusty creak, and stepped out upon the heavy carpet. The light roused shadows which flitted silently about the corners as in batlike fear. The air smelled heavy, and even the moist rustling of the girl’s garments sounded muffled. Wilson glanced at the wall, and at sight of the draped pictures pressed the girl’s hand.

“Our first bit of luck,” he whispered. “They have gone for the summer!”

They moved less cautiously now, but not until they reached the dining room and saw the covered chairs and drawn curtains did they feel fully assured. He thrust aside the portières and noted that the blinds were closed and the windows boarded. They could move quite safely now.

The mere sense of being under cover–of no longer feeling the beat of the rain upon them–was in itself a soul-satisfying relief. But there was still the dank cold of their soggy clothes against the body. They must have heat; and he moved on to the living rooms above. He pushed open a door and found himself in a large room of heavy oak, not draped like the others. He might have hesitated had it not been for the sight of a large fireplace directly facing him. When he saw that it was piled high with wood and coal ready to be lighted, he would have braved an army to reach it. Crossing the room, he thrust his candle into the kindling. The flames, as though surprised at being summoned, hesitated a second and then leaped hungrily to their meal. Wilson thrust his cold hands almost into the fire itself as he crouched over it.

“Come here,” he called over his shoulder. “Get some of this quickly.”

She huddled close to him and together they let their cold bodies drink in the warm air. It tingled at their fingers, smarted into their faces, and stung their chests.

“Nearer! Nearer!” he urged her. “Let it burn into you.”

Their garments sent out clouds of steam and sweated pools to the tiles at their feet; but still they bathed in the heat insatiably. He piled on wood until the flames crackled out of sight in the chimney and flared into the room. He took her by the shoulders and turned her round and round before it as one roasts a goose. He took her two hands and rubbed them briskly till they smarted; she laughed deliciously the while, and the color on her cheeks deepened. But in spite of all this they couldn’t get very far below the surface. He noticed the dripping fringe of her skirts and her water-logged shoes.