The Web of the Golden Spider

“I see no other way.”

“Then damn your eyes if–”

But he bit off the phrase and closed his eyes against the grinning face before him. As a matter of fact, he had made a discovery which brought with it a ray of hope. He found that with an effort he was able to bring his teeth against the rope where it passed over his shoulder. His hands were tied behind his back, but with the slack he would gain after gnawing through the rope, he would be able to loosen them. They had taken his revolver, but they had overlooked the hunting knife he always carried within his shirt suspended from his neck–a precaution which had proved useful to him before. The very thing he now hoped for was that they would leave him as he was.

The Priest departed and did not appear again. The three brown men settled down on their haunches and fell into that state of Indian lethargy which they were able to maintain for days, every sense resting but still alert. With their knees drawn up to their chins they chewed their coca leaves and stared at their toes, immovable as images. Stubbs looked them over; they did not appear to be strong men. Their arms and legs were rounded like those of women, and their chests were thin. He wondered now why he had not been able to shake them off.

Stubbs settled back to wait, but every now and then he deliberately tossed, turning from his back to his side and again to his back. He had two objects in mind; to keep the watchmen alert so that the strain would tell eventually in dulled senses, and to throw them off their guard when the time came that the movements really meant something. But they never even looked up; never shifted their positions. Each had by his side a two-edged sword, but neither revolver nor rifle. His own Winchester still lay in the grass near the hut, if they had not stolen it.

In this way several hours passed before he made the first move towards escape. They gave him neither water nor nourishment. So he waited until dark. Then he turned his head until his teeth rested upon the rope. He remained in this position without moving for ten minutes and then slowly, carefully began to nibble. The rope was finely knit and as tough as raw hide. At the end of a half hour he had scarcely made any impression at all upon it. At the end of an hour he had started several strands. The wiry threads irritated his lips and tongue so that they soon began to bleed, but this in turn softened the rope a trifle. The three brown men never stirred. The stars looked down impartially upon the four; also upon the girl by the lake and the man in the cave. It was all one to them.

He gnawed as steadily and as patiently as a rat. Each nibble soon became torture, but he never ceased save to toss a bit that the guards might not get suspicious. The dark soon blurred their outlines, but he had fixed their positions in his mind so that he could have reached them with his eyes shut. At the end of the third hour he had made his way half through the rope. It took him two hours more to weaken one half of the remainder. The pain was becoming unendurable. He quivered from head to foot each time he moved his jaw, for his lips were torn to the quick. His tongue was shredded; his chest damp with blood. Finally he ceased. Then carefully, very carefully, threw back his shoulders so as to bring a strain to the rope. He felt it pull apart, and sank to rest a bit.

Apparently he lay without moving. The brown men were like dead men. But inch by inch he had drawn the rope slack until he was able to unwind it from his wrists. Then by half inches he moved his hands free, slipping one of them from behind him to his side. It seemed to him as though Nature herself had paused to watch and listen. He turned now with his free hand beneath him. Slowly his fingers crept towards his chest, grasped the sheath, freed the blade, and then back to his side once more. He turned to his back, his hand behind him, his fingers grasping the horn handle.

His feet were still bound, but he figured that he could raise himself to a sitting posture and sever these with a single slash at the moment he sprang. But he must be quick–must be strong–must be calm. To this end he stretched himself upon his back and waited. If he were able to kill the first man with a single blow, he felt he would stand more than an equal chance with the two others. He was an adept in the use of the knife.

In a flash he was upright; in another he had cut through the rope on his ankles. He leaped forward, striking deep as his feet touched the earth. The knife sank to the hilt in the brown body. One of the others was reaching for his sword as Stubbs struck home again. But as he drew out his knife, the third was rushing for him with his long sword in his hands. He never reached him. With the skill of long experience, Stubbs threw his knife with the speed of an arrow from a bow. It struck the man just above the heart and he stumbled over his own feet. Stubbs melted into the shadow of the trees.

Once out of sight of the scene of this struggle, he stopped and listened. If this were all of them, there were several things he would get before he returned to the heights. A light breeze rustled the heavy tops above him, but otherwise the world seemed sound asleep. There was not the cracking of a twig–not the movement of a shadow. He ventured back. The three forms, save that they had settled into awkward positions, looked very much as they had a few minutes ago when they had stood between him and freedom. He passed them, stopping to recover his knife, and then moved on to where he had hidden the provisions. He took a rope, a can of beef, some crackers, and a small quantity of coca leaves. Then he went to the spring nearby and soothed his sore throat and mouth with water. He also filled a quart flask which he tied behind him. Returning to the caché, he covered it up again and, placing a roll of the coca leaves beneath his tongue, started on the ascent.

The dawn was just appearing in a flush of pink when he reached the top. A reconnaissance of the rocks around the hut and at the entrance to the crevice convinced him that no guards had been left here. Evidently the Priest had not thought their capture of supreme importance. It was more an act of precaution than anything else.

He felt more refreshed at the top of the peak than he had at the bottom and, wondering at this, it suddenly occurred to him that this was the effect of the coca leaves. He had heard in Bogova that the natives under its influence were able to endure incredible hardships without other nourishment of any kind. He took a larger mouthful. At any rate, they acted as balm upon his tongue and macerated lips. He felt no inclination to rest. Even had he felt fatigue, his anxiety over Wilson would have forbidden further delay.

He fastened one end of his rope securely about a point of rock and then sat down to study the map once more. He realized that he would need the help of every detail of these directions. Already he had committed them to memory,–he was calmer than Wilson about it and so had remembered them better,–but he went over them once more. There was more than treasure at stake this time.

He lowered himself into the crevice which had swallowed up his companion, with almost a sense of relief at being for the moment beyond the power of the Priest. He was tempted to cut the rope behind him, but a brief examination convinced him that this would be foolhardy. He still had sufficient left for an emergency–in case the rope was drawn up from above. Two men should stand a better chance of getting out of here than would a single man.

At the end of the first ten feet along the narrow path Stubbs felt much less confident than at the start that Wilson was alive. And he worked his way along the dangerous course with increasing fear. It was with a gasp of relief that he finally saw the opening ahead of him which marked the end. He paused to shout. He received no reply. He called his comrade’s name again. The dark walls about him caught his voice and imprisoned it.

Taking new risks, he pushed ahead. To the left he saw the cave mouth. He stopped once more, half fearing what he should find, and ran the remaining steps. At the entrance to the cave itself he stumbled over a prostrate body.

CHAPTER XXIII

The Spider Snaps

Stooping, Stubbs ran his hand down the length of Wilson’s arm and felt for his pulse. He caught a weak but steady beat. Prying open his mouth, he poured a large mouthful of water down the dry throat. Wilson quickly revived and begged for more.

“No, m’ son, this’ll do fer now. You’ll need it worse later on. An’ I’m darned glad to see yer again.”

“How–how long have I been here, Stubbs?” panted Wilson.

“Nigh twenty-four hours.”

“A day–a whole day wasted!”

“An’ another cross agin yer fren’ the Priest.”

“Was it he?”

“Th’ same.”

He gave Wilson a little food and a wisp of the coca leaves to chew and briefly told him what he had just been through. He concluded with a wave of his hand about him.

“So here we are at last, an’ a crew of savages waitin’ fer us at the top, which makes a fine and fittin’ end fer any v’yage upon which I embarks.”

“Water–give me more water.”

Stubbs rested the bottle to the man’s lips a moment and then had to fight with him to get it away.

“Now,” said Stubbs, “if ye’ve gut th’ breath, tell me, has ye explored at all?”

Wilson shook his head. He answered vaguely, his thoughts still upon the one thing.

“A day wasted and the Priest on his way! He said within a day, didn’t he, Stubbs? Lord! we’ve got to get out of here; we’ve got to get to her. He’ll kill them both–”

Wilson struggled to his feet and plunged towards the exit to the cave. Stubbs was upon him in a second and bore him down.

“Gawd, man, h’ain’t yer any sense left at all?”

A second later he repented his sharp speech, and added,

“There, lay still a moment, lad. I knows how yer feel, but we might’s well look aroun’ an’ find out how much bigger damned fools we are. Ye’ve gotter git yer strength before ye can move back over that course.”

“The treasure is there,” whispered Wilson; “but, Stubbs, I want more water–buckets of it.”

“What’s there?”

“Diamonds–diamonds, and not a drop of water.”

Stubbs did not believe it. He took it to be the hallucination of a man weak with thirst. But one thing was settled in his mind: if the cave were empty, he wouldn’t waste any more time here. Danger was increasing with every minute. He pawed his way into the rear of the cave and had not gone ten feet before he stumbled over the same pile Wilson had found. He seized a handful of the stones and made his way back to the light.

The jewels sparkled in his rough palm like chips from the stars themselves. They were of all sizes from a beechnut to a pecan. Even roughly cut and polished as they were, they still flashed back their rainbow hues with pointed brilliancy. He picked out a large yellow diamond which even in this dim light glowed like molten gold in a fog; another which imprisoned the purple of the night sky; and another tinged with the faint crimson of an afterglow. Jumbled together in his hand, they were a scintillating pile of tiny, living stars, their rays fencing in a dazzling play of light. Even to Stubbs, who knew nothing of the stones, they were so fascinating that he turned them over and over with his finger to watch their twinkling iridescence.

Just those he held there now were such as a lapidary would spend his life willingly in the getting. If not another stone were found in the cave, these alone represented a fortune worthy of the expedition. Each stone as it stood was worth probably from three to eight hundred dollars, and some of the larger would run into the thousands. It was difficult to realize their full value here where they counted for so little,–no more than the rays of the stars themselves,–here where so many others lay in a heap like broken glass. Vaguely Stubbs grasped the fact that he had in his possession the worth of many good ships and freedom for the rest of his life. Yet he thrilled less with this thought than he did with the sheer joy of discovery. A man will cherish a dime he picks up on the street more than he does a five-dollar bill in his pocket. It was this spirit of treasure-trove that got into his blood, sending a tingle of new life through his veins. He tried to rouse Wilson to it.

“Come here, man,” he shouted. “Come here and see what we’ve got. God! there’s millions in this cave!”

But Wilson lifted his head indifferently.

“I don’t give a damn,” he answered.

“You haven’t seen ’em sparkle–you haven’t gut it inter yer head! Ye’re rich–richer than Danbury!”

He hurried back to where Wilson sat and thrust the jewels before his eyes.

“D’ ye see ’em?” he cried excitedly. “Bigger ’n yer thumb?”