The Sign of the Spider

Laurence Stanninghame is in command here. And now his dark face flushes with the glow of a mad excitement, a perfectly transforming exhilaration. He would thunder his commands aloud, but that a deadly coolness is as indispensable almost as accuracy of aim. His orders are the same as Hazon's and uttered as calmly – but for a suppressed tremor – and as audibly.

The very earth seems to rock and reel beneath the detonating roll of the volleys, the thunderous rumble of charging feet. The dark, glaring faces of warring demons, the flinging aloft of shields, the groaning and yells, the redness of the sheeting flames, all this renders him mad – mad with the revel of conflict, with the herculean determination which is sublime above death. Here again whole lines of the enemy are down. Here again those in front would draw back if they could, but the immense weight behind hurls them on. It is the work of but very few moments.

And now the whole of the Ba-gcatya host is circling around the slaver's position, every now and again making a furious rush upon what seems a weak point of the defences. But the defenders have a way of massing upon each point thus attacked, and that with a celerity which is truly marvellous, and the result is the same. Yet with each repulse the terrible ranks leap forward immediately, and every such charge brings them nearer than the last. Moreover, as each of their fighting leaders is picked off, another springs forward with unparalleled intrepidity to take his place. The while the barking roar of their terrific slogan rends the air in its most demoniacal clamour.

Now an idea takes hold on the minds of these ferocious legionaries, and it is passed like lightning round the ranks. Those in the forefront haul up the bodies of the slain, and, holding them to them, stagger forward, thinking to make a buckler of the dead for the living. But the terrible rifles of the slavers drive their unerring missiles at that short range through dead and living alike, and corpse is heaped upon corpse in ghastly intertwining.

In the thickest of the tumult Hazon is here, there, everywhere – directing, encouraging, restraining. But for the demon-glow in the black eyes staring from the pale, set face, the man might have been made of marble, so little trace of emotion of any kind does he display. Laurence, too, is wary and self-contained, though getting in here and there a telling shot. Holmes, on the other hand, is firing away as fast as he can load. So far not a man has been injured. The assailants are not quite within spear-throwing distance yet.

"Ammunition hold out? Oh, yes, we have plenty of that," is Hazon's reply to a rapid, low-toned query on the part of Laurence. "But it's time they turned tail. Isandhlwana was nothing to this."

But now, with a deafening, vibrating roar the Ba-gcatya, massing suddenly, hurl fully one-half of their force upon the point directed by Lutali. They surge up the slope in one dense charge of lightning swiftness. Bullets are hailed upon them. They waver not. The hands of the defenders are skinned and blistered by contact with the breeches of their own rifles, so hot have these become through quick firing, and still the firing is not quick enough. Stumbling, leaping, flying over the defences they come – a great cloud of dark, grim faces, and bared teeth, and protruding eyeballs. They spring upon the defences, then over them. The whole might of the redoubtable foe is pouring into the natural fortress.

Now ensues a scene the like of which might be paralleled, but hardly surpassed, by some lurid drama of hell. In jarring shock they meet, those within and those, till now, without – the savage legionaries of "The Spider," and the no less savage and equally determined slave-hunters. The Wangoni, seeing their chance, have sprung forward to meet and roll back the assailants. But they themselves are beaten down by the broad shields, ripped with the terrible stabbing spears of the ferocious Ba-gcatya, now maddened to assuage their blood-thirst, and whose crushing might, now pouring over in countless numbers, this handful shall never hope to resist. The chief, Mashumbwe, is speared and ripped. The struggle is fierce and hand-to-hand, but short. The Wangoni, now a sorry remnant, are rolled back upon their allies.

Of these not a man but knows that the day is lost, that flight is impossible; that if the other half of the Ba-gcatya host has not swarmed over to take them on the rear, it is only because it is waiting to receive on its spear points all who flee. But there is no thought of flight. With all their indifference to human suffering, with all their brutality, their savagery, the slavers are as brave as any. They are indeed men picked for their desperate courage, and now, standing back to back, they begin to render the victory of the Ba-gcatya a dearly bought one indeed.

The war-shout no longer rends the air. There is a grim, fell silence in this hand-to-hand conflict, broken only by the snake-like hiss of the Ba-gcatya as an enemy goes down, by the slap and shock of shield meeting clubbed gun or stabbing knife, by the gasps of the combatants. The cloud of powder smoke hanging overhead partially veils the sun, which glowers, a blood-red ball, through this gloomy shroud.

The whole space within the rock-circle is a very charnel-pit of corpses, among which the combatants stagger – victorious Ba-gcatya and vanquished slave-hunters alike – stagger and slip on a foothold of oozy gore; stab, and strike, and fall in their turn.

In the rush and the mêlée Laurence Stanninghame has become separated even farther from his comrades, – his white comrades, that is, – nor can he by any effort hope to rejoin them. Several Arabs are around him, his own followers, swarthy sons of the Prophet, their keen eyes flashing hate and defiance upon the foe, their long ataghans sweeping a circle of light around them. In their forefront is Lutali – Lutali, whirling a great scimitar, hewing down more than one of the too venturesome Ba-gcatya, and that in spite of the broad bull-hide shield deftly wielded – Lutali, uttering a semi-religious war-cry, his erect form and keen, haughty face the very personification of absolute and dauntless valour. And he himself, wedged in by those around, can still get in now and again a telling shot from his revolver, and with every such shot one more warrior of "The Spider" has uttered his last battle cry.

No, there is no hope. Swift as lightning, a mighty brain-wave surges through Laurence's mind, and in it he sees the whole of his past life. Yet not even this dismays him – rather does it engender a sort of half-bitter exultation. Life for him has been such a mistake, and that not through any fault of his own. It held no especial charm for him. All its sweetness has been concentrated within one short idyllic period; but even that could not have lasted – even to it would have come disillusionment. Lilith would never learn his fate. It, and that of those with him, would vanish, as others had done, into the mysteries of this great mysterious continent. All this and more – so lightning-like is the power of thought – passes through Laurence Stanninghame's brain at this dread and awful moment.

A casting spear strikes him on the left shoulder, penetrating the flesh. Infuriated by the sharp, sickening pang, he discharges his revolver at the supposed thrower, but his aim is uncertain. Again he draws trigger. The hammer falls with a harmless click; the chambers are empty. And now, hard pressed by the yelling Ba-gcatya, those of his followers yet between him and the enemy stagger back, fighting furiously, while the life-stream wells from many a gashed and gaping wound. No longer can he see either Hazon or Holmes, for the forest of waving, reeking spear blades. Then one of his own followers, a hulking Swahili, mortally wounded, reels and falls, and, doing so, bears back Laurence beneath his ponderous weight. The rock-rampart is immediately behind him, and is low here. It catches the back of his knees, and now, having lost all control over his balance, grasping at empty air in wild effort to recover himself, Laurence pitches heavily backward over the rocks, and lies half stunned upon the plain without.

Those of the Ba-gcatya host in waiting on that side surge tumultuously forward, uttering yells of savage delight. This is the first of the doomed slavers who has come over; and he a white man, and of course a leader. Each warrior is eager to bury his spear-head in this man's body, and they crowd around him, every right hand raised aloft for the downward stroke.

But the fatal stroke remains undealt. Broad blades quiver aloft in a ring of steel. Each grim, bloodthirsty countenance is set and staring, stony in its indescribable expression of mingled marvel and awe, and eyeballs seem to start from their sockets as their owners stand gazing down upon this prostrate white man. Then from each broad chest a gasp bursts forth:

"Au! The Sign! The Sign of the Spider!"

CHAPTER XX.

TO WHAT END!

"The Sign of the Spider!" Laurence Stanninghame lying there, his faculties half dazed by the shock of his fall and the pain of his wound, hearing the words – uttered as they were in pure Zulu – almost persuaded himself that the terrible events of that day had been a dream. But no, it was real enough. His half-unclosed eyes took in the sea of grim, dark faces pressing forward to gaze upon him. "The Sign of the Spider?" What did it – what could it mean, that it should be all-powerful to stay those devouring spears, to avert from him the grisly death of blood, whose bitterness even then was already past? Then, as for the first time, he suffered his glance to follow the direction of theirs. He saw a strange thing.

The metal box had come forth, either jerked from its resting-place during his fall, or unconsciously plucked thence by his own hand in the last moment of his extremity, and now, still secured by the steel chain, it lay upon his breast. And oh! marvel of marvels! Gazing thus upon it, focussed by his half-closed eyelids and confused senses – the straggling monogram with its quaint turns and flourishes, lying brown upon the more shining metal, seemed to take exactly the form and aspect of a great sprawling tarantula. "The Sign of the Spider" had been their cry! And these were "The People of the Spider!" What magic, what mystery was this? Lilith's last gift, Lilith's image; even her very name! It had indeed acted as a talisman, as a "charm" to stand between him and the most deadly of peril, as her aspiration had worded it. Verily, again had Lilith's love availed to stand between himself and a swift, sure, and bloody death! A marvel, and a stupendous one.

All this flashed through his mind as the Ba-gcatya crowded up around him, the hubbub of their excited voices sinking into an awestruck murmur as they gazed upon the man who wore "The Sign of the Spider." No wonder this man should have come forth alive from the ring of death, they decided, – he alone, – wearing that sign. And he alone had come forth.

All sounds of conflict had now ceased, giving way to the exultant shouts and bass laughter of the victorious savages looting the property of the slavers. Not a man was left alive up there, Laurence knew only too well. He alone was spared, as the bearer of that mysterious sign; was spared, miraculously indeed – but to what end?

Now he became conscious of a movement among the crowd, which parted quickly, respectfully. Through the opening thus effected there advanced two men. Both were fine, tall warriors, elderly of aspect, for their short, crisp beards were turning gray, but apparently in the very prime of athletic strength and vigour. In outward adornment their appearance differed little from that of the bulk of the Ba-gcatya. Their shaven heads were surmounted by the isicoco, or ring, exactly after the Zulu fashion, and on either side of this, but fastened so as not to interfere with it, nodded a tuft of magnificent white ostrich plumes. Laurence, who had now raised himself to a sitting posture, felt no doubt but that in these he beheld the two principal war-chiefs of the Ba-gcatya army.

"Who art thou, stranger, who wearest the Sign of the Spider?" began one of these in pure Zulu, after gazing upon him for a moment in silence.

Laurence at first thought to affect ignorance of the language, of which, indeed, he possessed considerable knowledge. He would the more readily get at their plans and intentions that way. But then it occurred to him he could hardly sustain his character as one to be favoured of the People of the Spider if professing an ignorance of their tongue, and he intended to work that fortunate incident for all it would carry. So he replied courteously:

"You see me, father. I alone am alive of those who fought up yonder. Even the spear which would slay me refused its work. It was turned aside," showing the wound in his shoulder, of which he realized he must make light, though, as a matter of fact, it was giving him considerable pain.

A deep murmur from the vast and increasing audience convinced the speaker that he had scored a point in making this statement. The chief continued:

"Rest now, while we rest, O stranger, and eat, for the way is far which lies before us."

"And whither does that way lie, O brave ones who command the valiant?" asked Laurence.

"Where dwelleth the Strong Wind that burns from the North." And with this darkly enigmatical rejoinder the speaker and his brother chief turned away, as a sign that the conference need proceed no further at present.

Some of those who had heard now beckoned Laurence forward, and, as he moved among that terrible host, many and strange were the glances which were cast at him. He, for his part, was not unmoved. This was an experience clean outside any he had ever known. The might and stature of these formidable warriors, lingering around in immense groups, many of them bleeding from ghastly wounds, yet devouring the dried food they carried, the while comrades were treating their hurts after a fashion which would have caused the civilized being to shriek aloud with agony; the ferocious volubility wherewith they discussed and fought the battle over again; and away beyond their lines, the earth black with corpses of the slain; while up yonder, though this he could not see, the rock circle was literally piled with those who had been his friends or followers for many a long day. All this impressed him to an extent which he had hardly deemed possible, though of any outward evidence thereof he gave no sign.

"Are all dead up yonder?" he asked some of the Ba-gcatya, as he joined them in their frugal fare.

A laugh, derisive but not discourteous to himself, greeted the question.

"Au! The bite of The Spider does not need repeating twice," was the reply. "None who have once felt it live."

The Ba-gcatya, heavy as had been their losses, were in high good-humour over their victory. After all, it was a victory, and a hard-fought one. They only lived for such. Losses were nothing to them. The spoils of the slavers' caravan – arms, ammunition, goods of all sorts, were distributed for transport among the younger regiments of the impi, which, its allotted period of rest over, at a mandate from its chiefs prepared for departure. And now the solitary white man in its midst – captive or guest, he himself was hardly certain which – had an opportunity of admiring the stern and iron discipline of this splendid army of savages. That of the Zulu troops under the rule of Cetywayo, or even under that of Tshaka, might have equalled it, but could not possibly have surpassed it. Each company fell into rank with machine-like precision and celerity. The dead were left as they fell; those who were too grievously wounded to move received death from the swift, sure spear-stroke of a comrade; then, marching in five columns, the great army set forth on its return, striking a course to the northward.

Laurence Stanninghame's feelings were passing strange as he found himself thus carried captive, he knew not whither, by this mighty nation which had hitherto been to him but a name, as to whose very existence he had been until quite recently more than half sceptical. Hazon had not exaggerated its strength or prowess; no, not one whit. Of that he had had abundant testimony. And Hazon himself? That strange individual, with his marked-out personality, his cold-blooded ruthlessness and dauntless courage? Well, his career was done. He lay in yonder circle, buried beneath the slain, fighting to the last with fierce and consistent valour. And Holmes? Even Laurence's hardened nature felt soft as he thought of the comrade with whom he had been so closely linked during these years of lawless and perilous enterprise. Well, they were gone, and he was spared, but – to what end?

Then the spirit of the true adventurer reasserted itself. What lay before him? What were the chances opening out to him in the dim, unknown land whither they were speeding? "You will return wealthy, or – you will not return at all," had been Hazon's words; and now their utterer would utter no more words of any kind – but he, Laurence, would he return at all? Would he?

And now, as they gained the edge of the great plain, the whole impi raised a mighty battle-song, improvised to celebrate their triumph. Its fierce strophes rolled like thunder along the ranks to the tread of marching feet, and the multitude of hide shields dappled the plain far and near, and the wavy lines of spear-points flashed and sparkled in the sunlight.

And already over the wizard ring of the rock circle, piled with its slain, immense clouds of vultures were wheeling beneath the blue vault or swooping down upon their abundant feast. And the sun, flaming down upon the torrid earth, seemed to shed a pitiless, brassy glare upon this awful hecatomb, whose annals should ever remain unrecorded, swallowed up in the grim and gloomy mysteries of that region of cruelty and of blood.

For many days thus they journeyed – making rapid, but not forced marches. The aspect of the country, too, varied, – open, wavy plains, where giraffe and buffalo were plentiful, and were hunted in great numbers for the supply of the impi– then gloomy forest tracts, which seemed to depress the Ba-gcatya, who hurried through them with all possible speed. Broad rivers, too, swarming with crocodiles and hippopotami, – and these the warriors would dash through in a mass, making the most hideous yelling and splashing. But even the ground seemed gradually to ascend, and certain white peaks, for some time visible on the far sky line, were drawing nearer, growing larger with every march.

It may seem strange how readily Laurence Stanninghame adapted himself to this new turn in the tide of his affairs – and indeed now and again he would faintly wonder at it himself. He had fought against these formidable savages in the most determined and bloody hand-to-hand conflict that had ever befallen his lot, or, in all probability, ever would again. They had overwhelmed and massacred his comrades and whole following; sparing himself alone, and that by a miracle. And now not only was he subjected to no ill-treatment or indignity, but moved freely among them, and was even suffered to retain his arms. Yet there was a sort of stand-offishness about most of them, in which he thought to descry a mingling of awe and repulsion.

Now and again, however, a thought would occur to him, – a thought productive of a cold shiver. To what end was he thus spared? Was it to be sacrificed in some hideous and gruesome rite? The thought was not a pleasant one, and it would intrude more and more. The hot African glow, the adventurous life, replete with every phase of weird and depressing incident, had strangely affected this man's temperament. With all his coolness in emergencies – his readiness of resource – in times of rest he would grow moody and high-strung. A sort of surcharged, mesmeric property seemed to hold him at such times, and he would wonder whether the hideous experiences and iron self-repression which he had passed through of late had not begun, unknown to himself, actually to affect his brain.

Now during the heat of the midday halt, he would withdraw and sit alone by the hour, contemplating the metal box, and at times its contents. More and more, since his wonderful escape, was it assuming in his eyes the properties of an amulet, or charm. It would reassure him, too, what time unpleasant thoughts would weigh upon him as to the end to which he had been reserved. Twice had Lilith's love stood between him and death. Would it not again? In truth the metal box was a possession beyond price.

All unconsciously his frequent and rapt contemplation of this object was standing him in valuable stead. The Ba-gcatya, furtively beholding him thus engaged, – for he was never beyond their watchful gaze, – were strengthened in their belief that he was a magician of the Spider, and feared him the more. He was thus, unconsciously, keeping up his character as such.

Yet, vivid as recollection was, as conjured up by the metal box, in other respects the old life seemed far away as a dream; misty, shadowy, vanishing. All its old conventionalities, its abstract notions of right and wrong, what were they? Dust. Even now, whither was he wending? Would he ever again behold a white face? It might be never.

"Have no white people ever visited your country, Silawayo?" he said one day while he and the two war-chiefs were talking together during the march.

"One only," was the reply, given with a shade of hesitation.

"And what became of him?"

"Au! He went to – Well, he went – " answered the chief, with a curious look.