The Sign of the Spider

"Well, dear, be as happy as you like now – all day and every day. You have had enough of the other thing to last you a precious long time."

They strolled on through the sweet May evening – on beneath a great beech hanger, where cushats cooed softly among the green mast, and the air was musical with the sweet piping of thrushes and the caw of homing rooks. Here and there a gap in the hawthorn hedge disclosed a glimpse of red-tiled roof and farm stack – and nestling among the trees of the park the chimneys of the Hall.

Laurence Stanninghame had found this place by a mere chance. He might have purchased it for a third of its value, but he preferred not. Possibly he distrusted the wandering blood within him, possibly he did not lose sight of the fact that where he had found the great diamonds he had certainly left behind many more, to be found or not at some future time. So he rented the house and park, and extensive shooting and fishing rights. No more pinching and scraping now. To the children this change was, as Fay had said, "heavenly."

"How do people get rich in Africa, father?" said the latter, as they turned homeward.

"In various ways. They find gold mines with no gold in them, and then sell shares in them to a pack of idiots for a great deal of money. Or they perhaps find a few diamonds themselves. Or they trade in all sorts of things – ivory, and so forth."

He had stopped to light a pipe; Fay, intently watching his face through the clouds of smoke he was puffing forth, detected a lurking quizzical expression in his eyes, which roused her scepticism.

"I never quite know whether you are serious or not, father," she said. "But you never tell us any stories about Africa."

"I've got out of practice for story-telling, little one."

"But Colonel Hewett tells us plenty," – naming a neighbour, – "and yet he hasn't been so much in Africa as you have."

"Ah, he'll never get out of practice in that line," returned Laurence, with the same quizzical laugh.

"What a lot of adventures you must have had, father," went on Fay wistfully; for this was a sore subject both with herself and her brothers. They had expected tale upon tale of hair-raising peril – of lions and crocodiles and snakes and fighting Zulus. But woeful disappointment awaited. The last topic the returned wanderer seemed to care to talk upon was that of his wanderings.

Before they regained the house they were joined by the two boys, happy and healthy with their recent gallop, and full of the trout they were going to catch on the morrow under the tuition of the keeper. Laurence, dismissing them for a while, entered quietly by a back way. The post had come in, and with it an African mail letter. This he carried into his private sanctum. It was from Holmes.

"I hope the fellow isn't going to make trouble," he said to himself with a slight clouding of the brow. "He's idiot enough to turn pious – repentant, I suppose, they would call it – and give the whole thing away. 'Nothing but a curse can come of it, – the curse of blood,' the young fool said, or words to that effect. I wonder what sort of a 'curse' it is that puts one in possession of all this," looking out upon the soft, peaceful English landscape, hayfield and wooded hill, slumbering in the gathering dusk. "As if there could be a greater curse anyhow than being condemned to go through life that most pitiable object – a pauper with sixteen quarterings. No – no!"

He tore open the envelope, and in the fading light ran rapidly over its contents. Hazon had returned to Johannesburg, and had wound up all their affairs, and each of them was in possession of more than a small fortune. There was nothing, however, of the remorseful or the morbid about the writer now, and, turning over the page, Laurence broke into a short half laugh, for there followed the announcement of Holmes' engagement to Mabel Falkner of the blue eyes, and the usual transports and rhapsodies attendant upon such a communication. Skipping the bulk of this, Laurence returned the missive to his pocket with another sneering laugh.

"We shall hear no more about a 'curse' on our good fortune now, friend Holmes," he said to himself, "for you are entering upon an institution calculated to knock out all such Quixotic niceties. Ha, ha! I shouldn't be in the least surprised if in a little while you didn't hanker to start up-country again upon another 'ivory' trade."

But Holmes' letter had, as it were, let in a waft of the dark cloud of the Past upon the fair and smiling peacefulness of the Present, and he fell to thinking on what strange experiences had been his – of the consistent and unswerving irony of life as he had known it. Every conventionality violated – every rule of morality, each set aside, had brought him nothing but good – had brought nothing but good to him and his. Had he grovelled on in humdrum poverty-stricken respectability, what would have befallen him – and them? For him the stereotyped "temporary insanity" verdict of a coroner's jury – for them, well, Heaven only knew. Whereas now?

At this stage an impulse moved him, and opening a locked cabinet he took forth something, and as he examined it the associations of the thing, and the fast darkening room, brought back the vision of glooming rock walls and a perfectly defenceless man weighed down with horror and dread.

"May I come in, father? But you are in the dark."

It was Fay's voice. He half started, so rapt was he in his meditations.

"That's soon remedied," he said, striking a light. "Yes, come in, little one. You were asking about this thing once. Look at it – queer sort of weapon, isn't it?"

"It is, indeed," she answered. "Is it a Zulu war club? Why, the head is made of brass, or is it gold? And look, there is some strange writing on it."

"And the handle is a bone. Yes, the head is gold, and I put the thing together when I had no other weapon – ay – and used it, too, in the ghastliest kind of fight I ever was in. Come, now, we will put it away again."

"Not yet, father. Show me some more queer things," she pleaded, nestling to his side.

Then he got out other trophies and curios, and Fay spent a good hour of unalloyed delight turning them wonderingly over, and drinking in the incident, more or less stirring, which related to each.

But there was one thing he did not show her; one thing upon which no eye save his own might ever again rest; one thing he treasured up in the greatest security under lock and key, which was enshrined within his mind as a hallowed "charm," and that was the metal box and its contents – the "charm" which twice had stood between him and death – death violent and horrible – The Sign of the Spider.

notes

1

Cannibals.

2

A term of deference frequently used in addressing one of the royal family.

3

Payment of cattle made to the father of a girl sought in marriage.

4

"Lindela" means to "wait for" – in the sense of "to watch for," hence the full significance of the parting remark.

5

Founder of the Zulu dynasty, and of course patriarchally greater than the royal house of this Zulu-originated tribe.

6

Doer of witchcraft.

7

Tutelary spirit.