The Web of the Golden Spider

Sorez brought himself to try once more.

“If you have a spark of pity in your heart, you will do her no harm. Listen! I lied to the girl. I brought her here on the hope that she might find this father who has been a long time gone from home. He was a sea captain and I told her that many captains had been lost here in the mountains and been found again. I told her that I had seen her father in Bogova. That is why she came.”

“To the lake?”

Sorez had but a second in which to decide. If he told the Priest of the girl’s power, the latter might slay her to bury the secret, or torture her to betray it to him. No, it would be safer to leave the Priest merely suspicious.

“As I am about to die,” affirmed Sorez, solemnly, “that is God’s truth.”

The Priest placed the little golden idol out of danger. Then he stooped and bound the ropes more tightly about the ankles of the prostrate man. Sorez watched him with new interest–almost with a new hope. He glanced at the girl and saw her kneeling upon the raft, her white face to the moon.

The Priest bent to fasten the rope which already bit into the flesh above the arms. It was for this Sorez had prayed. As the Priest stooped, his long coat swayed within reach of the long-waiting fingers. Sorez gripped both laps and that grip was the grip of death.

Before the Priest understood the situation, Sorez had bent his bound legs double beneath him and, gripping the tightly bound straw with his heels, shoved with all his strength towards the edge of the raft. The Priest fell atop of him, but instantly tore himself back. The fingers held. Once again Sorez hitched forward and once again the Priest came with him. In a panic the crazed Priest bore his knees down upon the prostrate man and then swung off to one side. But the fingers held. Sorez was now lying with his head half over the edge. The silver waters lipped his gray hair. He raised his legs once more–just once more, and shoved.

He gained an inch. Then in a flash the Priest managed to stand up with Sorez still clinging. But only for a moment, when he fell backwards, striking the back of his head sharply upon the logs. The girl screamed in fright. The Priest saw the world swim before his eyes, and the next second looked up to find a woman–his own daughter–his Jo–looking back at him! But Sorez still clung and still shoved with his legs towards the edge of the boat.

“For God’s sake–what are you about?” gasped he who a moment gone had been the Priest.

Sorez saw nothing of the change. He was busy bending up his legs, digging in his heels, and shoving.

“Father! Father!”

Sorez had heard the cry before. He felt the girl beating at him with her white hands. The raft was beginning to settle. In the heavy fall of the two men a section had been loosened so that now it might possibly hold two of them–no more. The girl realized this; the man realized this. Sorez knew nothing save his determination to drag the Priest to the bottom with him.

“Let him go!” shouted the girl. “Let him go! He is my father! Can’t you hear?”

The words penetrated just as he was about to shove once more.

“Your father?”

“Quick! We are sinking!”

He let go. The Priest sprang to his feet. The canoe had gone and the loosely constructed raft was settling as timber after timber freed itself. Sorez, himself again, saw this. Without a word he shoved once more,–this time himself alone. He went down and the raft floated. He had kept his word after all; he had given the girl her father.

CHAPTER XXVI

A Lucky Bad Shot

As soon as they recovered sufficient strength to desire anything more of life than rest for their bruised and weary bodies, Wilson assumed command of the situation. He saw nothing but a straight path to the girl.

“We must get down to the lake,” he said firmly. “Get down there and find Sorez. If the natives are up in arms, I want to be near the girl. I’m going to take her out of here. If the others refuse to join us, we’ll take her alone and make a dash for it.”

“We oughter get our provisions first,” suggested Stubbs.

“No–what strength we have left is for her.”

“We’ll have twice as much with grub.”

“And we’ll have less time.”

Wilson’s jaw was set. To go down the mountain and back would take at least four hours and leave them even nearer dead than they were at present. Aside from that, the desire to see the girl had become an obsession. He was no longer amenable to reason. He felt the power to dominate. In the last two days he had learned that there are at least two essential things in life–two things a man has a right to take where he finds them–love and water. The two lay at his feet now and he would wait no longer. His heart burned with as hot a thirst as his throat. Neither Sorez nor gold nor all the brown men in the universe should balk him of them longer.

Leaning forward he gripped the arm of his comrade with a strength the latter had not thought within him.

“Old man,” he said with a new ring in his voice, “you must follow me the rest of this journey. I’ve got down to one thing now–just one thing. I’m going to find this girl–I’m going to take her into these two arms–and I’m going to carry her out of here and never let her go. Do you understand? And there isn’t gold enough, nor men enough, nor heathen images enough in the world to stop me now. We’re going back, Stubbs–the girl and I–we’re going back, and God help those who get in our way.”

At first Stubbs thought this was the fever, but as he looked at the tense face, the locked jaw, the burning eyes, he saw it was only a man in earnest. Some spark within his own breast warmed to life before this passion. He put out his hand.

“An’ I signs with you right here.”

“I’ve turned aside for things all I’m going to,” ran on Wilson, excitedly. “Now I’m going over them. I’m going straight–I’m going hard–and I’m not going to turn my back on her again for a second. Do you understand, Stubbs? She’s mine and I’m going to take her.”

“You won’t have to take her, if you feel that way,” answered Stubbs.

“What d’ you mean?”

“She’ll go, boy–she’ll go through Hell with you with thet look in your eyes.”

“Then come on,” shouted Wilson, with quite unnecessary fierceness. “I’m going to pull out of this heathen web.”

The two men rose to their tired feet, every muscle protesting, and before dark Stubbs learned how little the body counts, how little anything counts, before the will of a man who has focused the might of his soul upon a single thing. They moved down ever towards the blue lake which blinked back at the sun like a blue-eyed babe. Their rifles pressed upon their shoulders like bars of lead; their heavy feet were numb; their eyes bulged from their heads with the strain of keeping them open. Of the long, bitter struggle, it is enough to say that it was a sheer victory over the impossible. Each mile was a blank, yet they pressed forward, Wilson ever in the lead, Stubbs ever plodding behind. It was almost as though they were automatons galvanized by some higher intelligence, for their own had become numbed save to the necessity of still dragging their feet ahead. In this way they reached the shores of the lake; in this way they circled it; in this way they neared the hut of Flores. Stumbling along the trail, guided by some instinct, Wilson raised his head at the sight of two figures sitting in the sun by the door of the hut; one was the girl, he saw that clearly enough, for to his own vision it was as the sun breaking through low-hanging clouds; but the other–he motioned Stubbs to halt. The two had made no noise, coming up through the undergrowth from the lake, and were now able to conceal themselves partly behind a sort of high bush. Had those in the hut been alert, the two could not have escaped detection, but so intent they seemed upon their conversation that a dozen men might have approached. Wilson tried to control himself; he wished to make sure. Steadying himself by a grip upon the shoulder of Stubbs, he looked again. Then bending close to his comrade’s ear, he asked him–waiting without drawing breath for reply,–

“Who is it?”

The answer came charged with bitterness,

“The Priest!”

Wilson lowered his rifle. The Priest was sitting some two feet from the girl, against the hut, his head thrown back as though he were trying hard to think. Wilson was a good shot; he had as a boy amused himself by the hour with his small, twenty-two caliber rifle. At this moment, however, his sight was none of the best and his hand anything but steady. Stubbs signaled him to let him try the shot, but Wilson would not trust him. He had no doubt but that the Priest had killed Sorez and was now holding the girl a prisoner, perhaps even anticipating her death. It was his duty, his privilege, to set her free. He fitted the stock of the weapon into his armpit, and raised the barrel. His hand was weak; the gun trembled so that he dared not shoot. Stubbs saw this and, stepping in front of him, motioned him to rest the barrel on his shoulder. With this support he found his aim steadier. He purposely gave a bit of a margin to the right, so that in case of any deflection the error would be away from the girl. He pulled the trigger.

When the wisp of smoke cleared away, Wilson saw that both figures were upon their feet–the girl in the arms of the priest who held her close to him as though to protect her. Their eyes were upon him. The girl stared in terror, then in surprise, and now, struggling free, stood as though looking at an apparition.

Wilson understood nothing of this. His brain was now too slow working to master fresh details. He still grasped nothing but the fact that the girl was there and by her side the man who had proved himself a mortal enemy. He raised his weapon once more.

With a scream the girl ran straight ahead towards him, in line with the astonished man by the hut. As she ran she called,

“David! David! David!”

He heard the call and, dropping the rifle, staggered towards her. He held out his arms to her and she checked her steps, studying his eyes as though to make sure he was sane. He stood motionless but there was a prayer in his silent lips, in his eyes, in his outstretched arms. She took another little step towards him, then, without further hesitation, came to his side and placed her head upon his shoulder. He folded his arms over her heaving shoulders–he rested his cheek upon her black hair–he whispered her name again and again.

So they stood, Stubbs and the Priest both staring at them as at the central figures upon the stage, until she raised her head to look once more into his eyes. He saw her lips within a few inches of his own, but he dared not kiss them yet. It was odd–he had never in his life spoken an audible word of love to her–had never written of love to her–and yet he knew that she knew all that had been unsaid, even as he did. There had never been need of words with them. Love had been developed in the consciousness of each in silence and in loneliness, but had moved to this climax as surely and as inevitably as though foreordained. He had but to look down into her eyes now and all was said; she had but to look into his, even deadened as they were by fatigue, to read all her heart craved. Her breath came in little gasps.

“David–David, you have come for me again!”

“For the last time,” he answered.

“You are never going to let me go again, are you, David?”