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THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER
BY
BERTRAM MITFORD
AUTHOR OF "A VELDT OFFICIAL," "'TWIXT SNOW AND FIRE"
DODD MEAD AND COMPANY 1897
COPYRIGHT, 1896,
BY
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY.
[Illustration: "DON'T FIRE THIS WAY ... KEEP THE FOOLS IN HAND."]
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. "SWEET HOME," 1
II. ADAM'S FIRST WIFE, 11
III. "BEWARE SUCH UNHOLY SPELLS," 26
IV. THE LAND OF PROMISE, 41
V. KING SCRIP, 54
VI. "PIRATE" HAZON, 67
VII. "THE WHOLE SOUL PRISONER ..." 82
VIII. DARK DAYS, 94
IX. HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL, 106
X. PREPARATION, 120
XI. "AT THE TWELFTH HOUR," 130
XII. "THE DARK PLACES OF THE EARTH," 145
XIII. THE MAN HUNTER, 155
XIV. A DREAM, 163
XV. AN AWAKENING, 174
XVI. AN ANGEL UNAWARES, 184
XVII. DISSENSIONS, 195
XVIII. TWO PERILS, 205
XIX. THE SIGN, 215
XX. TO WHAT END! 223
XXI. "THE STRONG WIND THAT BURNS FROM THE NORTH," 235
XXII. THE SHADOW OF THE MYSTERY, 246
XXIII. LINDELA, 257
XXIV. AS FROM THE DEAD, 268
XXV. HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIEND, 279
XXVI. THE PLACE OF THE HORROR, 290
XXVII. THE HORROR, 301
XXVIII. "ONLY A SAVAGE!" 313
XXIX. "A DEEP--A SOLITARY GRAVE," 324
XXX. "GOOD-BYE, MY IDEAL!" 334
XXXI. CONCLUSION, 348
THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER.
CHAPTER I.
"SWEET HOME!"
She was talking _at_ him.
This was a thing she frequently did, and she had two ways of doing it.
One was to talk at him through a third party when they two were not
alone together; the other to convey moralizings and innuendo for his
edification when they were--as in the present case.
Just now she was extolling the superabundant virtues of somebody else's
husband, with a tone and meaning which were intended to convey to
Laurence Stanninghame that she wished to Heaven one-twentieth part of
them was vested in hers.
He was accustomed to being thus talked at. He ought to be, seeing he had
known about thirteen years of it, on and off. But he did not like it any
the better from force of habit. We doubt if anybody ever does. However,
he had long ceased to take any notice, in the way of retort, no matter
how acrid the tone, how biting the innuendo. Now, pushing back his chair
from the breakfast-table, he got up, and, turning to the mantelpiece,
proceeded to fill a pipe. His spouse, exasperated by his silence,
continued to talk at--his back.
The sickly rays of the autumn sun struggled feebly through the murk of
the suburban atmosphere, creeping half-ashamedly over the well-worn
carpet, then up to the dingy wall-paper, whose dinginess had this
redeeming point, that it toned down what otherwise would have been
staring, crude, hideous. The furniture was battered and worn, and there
was an atmosphere of dustiness, thick-laid, grimy, which seemed
inseparable from the place. In the street a piano-organ, engineered by a
brace of sham Italians, was rapping out the latest music-hall
abomination. Laurence Stanninghame turned again to his wife, who was
still seated at the table.
"Continue," he said. "It is a great art knowing when to make the most of
one's opportunities, which, for present purposes, may be taken to mean
that you had better let off all the steam you can, for you have only two
days more to do it in--only two whole days."
"Going away again?" (staccato).
Laurence nodded, and emitted a cloud or two of smoke.
There rumbled forth a cannonade of words, which did not precisely
express approval. Then, staccato:
"Where are you going to this time?"
"Johannesburg."
"What? But it's nonsense."
"It's fact."
"Well--of course you can't go."
"Who says so?"
"Of course you can't go, and leave us here all alone," she replied,
speaking quickly. "Why, it's too preposterous! I've been treated
shamefully enough all these years, but this puts the crowning straw on
to it," she went on, beginning to mix her metaphor, as angry people--and
especially angry women--will. "Of course you can't go!"
To one statement, as made above, he was at no pains to reply. He had
heard it so often that it had long since passed into the category of
"not new, not true, and doesn't matter." To the other he answered:
"I've an idea that the term 'of course' makes the other way; I _can_ go,
and I am going--in fact, I have already booked my passage by the
_Persian_, sailing from Southampton the day after to-morrow. Look! will
that convince you?" holding out the passage ticket.
Then there was a scene--an awful racket. It was infamous. She would not
put up with such treatment. It amounted to desertion, and so forth. Yes,
it was a "scene," indeed. But force of habit had utterly dulled its
effectiveness as a weapon. Indeed, the only effect it might have been
calculated to produce in the mind of the offending party had he not
already secured his berth, would be that of moving him to sally forth
and carry out that operation on the spot.
"Look here!" he said, when failure of breath and vocabulary had perforce
effected a lull. "I've had about enough of this awful life, and so I'm
going to try if I can't do something to set things right again, before
it's too late. Now, the Johannesburg 'boom' is the thing to do it, if
anything will. It's kill or cure."
"And what if it's kill?"
"What if it's kill? Then, one may as well take it fighting. Better,
anyway, than scattering one's brains on that hearth-rug some morning in
the small hours out of sheer disgust with the dead hopelessness of life.
That's what it is coming to as things now are."
"All very well. But, in that case, what is to become of me--of us?"
A very hard look came into the man's face at the question.
"In that case--draw on the other side of the house. There's plenty
there," he answered shortly, re-lighting his pipe, which had gone out in
mid-blast.
The reply seemed to fan up her wrath anew, and she started in to talk at
him again. Under which circumstances, perhaps it was just as well that a
couple of heavy bangs overhead and a series of appalling yells,
betokening a nursery catastrophe, should cut short her eloquence, and
start her off, panic-stricken, to investigate.
Left alone, still standing with his back to the mantelpiece, Laurence
Stanninghame put forth a hand. It shook--was, in fact, all of a tremble.
"Look at that!" he said to himself. "The squalid racket of this
rough-and-tumble life is playing the devil with my nerves. I believe I
couldn't drink a wineglassful of grog at this moment without spilling
half of it on the floor. I'll try, anyhow."
He unlocked a chiffonier, produced a whisky bottle, and, having poured
some into a wineglass, not filling it, tossed off the "nip."
"That's better," he said. Then mechanically he moved to the window and
stood looking out, though in reality seeing nothing. He was
thinking--thinking hard. The course he had decided to adopt was the
right thing--as to that he had no sort of doubt. He had no regular
income, and such remnant of capital as he still possessed was dwindling
alarmingly. Men had made fortunes at places like Johannesburg, starting
with almost literally the traditional half-crown, why should not he? Not
that he expected to make a fortune; a fair competence would satisfy him,
a sufficiency. The thought of no longer being obliged to hold an inquest
on every sixpence; of bidding farewell forever to this life of pinching
and screwing; of dwelling decently instead of pigging it in a cramped
and jerry-built semi-detached; of enjoying once more some of life's
brightnesses--sport, for instance, of which he was passionately fond; of
the means to wander, when disposed, through earth's fairest
places--these reflections would have fired his soul as he stood there,
but that the flame of hopefulness had long since died within him and
gone out. Now they only evoked bitterness by their tantalizing
allurement.
Other men had made their pile, why should not he? Rainsford, for
instance, who had been, if possible, more down on his luck than
himself--Rainsford had gone out to the new gold town while it was yet
very new and had made a good thing of it. Two or three other
acquaintances of his had gone there and had made very much more than a
good thing of it. Why should not he?
Laurence Stanninghame was just touching middle age. As he stood at the
window, the murky September sun seemed to bring out the lines and
wrinkles of his clear-cut face, which was distinctly the face of a man
who has not made a good thing of life, and who can never for a moment
lose sight of that fact. There were lines above the eyes, clear, blue,
and somewhat sunken eyes, which denoted the habit of the brows to
contract on very slight provocation, and far oftener than was good for
their owner's peace of mind, and the bronze underlying the clear skin
told of a former life in the open--possibly under a warmer sun than that
now playing upon it. As to its features, it was a strong face, but there
was a certain indefinable something about it when off its guard, which
would have told a close physiognomist of the possession of latent
instincts, unknown to their possessor, instincts which, if stifled,
choked, were not dead, and which, if ever their depths were stirred,
would yield forth strange and dangerous possibilities.
He was of fine constitution, active and wiry; but the cramped life and
squalid worry of a year-in year-out, semi-detached, suburban existence
had, as he told himself, played the mischief with his nerves, and now to
this was added the ghastly vista of impending actual beggary. Whatever
he did and wherever he went this thought would not be quenched. It was
ever with him, gnawing like an aching tooth. Lying awake at night it
would glare at him with spectral eyes in the darkness; then, unless he
could force himself by all manner of strange and artificial means, such
as repeating favourite verse, and so forth, to throw it off, good-bye to
sleep--result, nerves yet further shaken, a succession of brooding days,
and system thrown off its balance by domestic friction and strife. Many
a man has sought a remedy for far less ill in the bottle, whether of
grog or laudanum; but this one's character was in its strength proof
against the first, while for the latter, that might come, but only as a
very last extremity. Meanwhile ofttimes he wondered how that blank,
hopeless feeling of having completely done with life could be his,
seeing that he was still in his prime. Formerly eager, sanguine,
warm-hearted, glowing with good impulses; now indifferent, sceptical,
with a heart of stone and the chronic sneer of a cynic.
He was one of those men who seem born never to succeed. With everything
in his favour apparently, Laurence Stanninghame never did succeed.
Everything he touched seemed to go wrong. If he speculated, whether it
was a half-crown bet or a thousand-pound investment, smash went the
concern. He was of an inventive turn and had patented--of course at
considerable expenditure--a thing or two; but by some crafty twist of
the law's subtle rascalities, others had managed to reap the benefit. He
had tried his hand at writing, but press and publisher alike shied at
him. He was too bitter, too bold, too sweeping, too thorough. So he
threw that, as he had thrown other things, in sheer disgust and
hopelessness.
Now he was going to cast in the net for a final effort, and already his
spirits began to revive at the thought. Any faint spark of lingering
sentiment, if any there were, was quenched in the thought that the turn
of the wheel might bring good luck, but it was impossible it could
strand him in worse case. For the sentimental side of it--separation,
long absence--well, the droop of the cynical corners of the mouth became
more emphasized at the recollection of that faded old figment, "home,
sweet home," and glowing aspirations after the so-called holy and pure
joys of the family circle; whereas the reality, a sort of Punch and Judy
show at best. No, there was no sentimental side to this undertaking.
Yet Laurence Stanninghame's partner in life was by no means a bad sort
of a woman. She had plenty of redeeming qualities, in that she was
good-hearted at bottom and well-meaning, and withal a most devoted
mother. But she had a tongue and a temper, together with an exceedingly
injudicious, not to say foolish twist of mind; and this combination,
other good points notwithstanding, the quality which should avail to
redeem has hitherto remained undiscoverable in any live human being.
Furthermore, she owned a will. When two wills come into contact the
weakest goes under, and that soon. Then there may be peace. In this case
neither went under, because, presumably, evenly balanced.
Result--warfare, incessant, chronic.
Having finished his pipe, Laurence Stanninghame got out a hat and an
umbrella, and set to work to brush the former and furl the latter prior
to going out. The hat was not of that uniform and glossy smoothness
which one could see into to shave, and the umbrella was weather-beaten
of aspect. The morning coat, though well cut, was shiny at the seams.
Yet, in spite of the wear and tear of his outer gear, with so
unmistakably thoroughbred a look was their wearer stamped that it seemed
he might have worn anything. Many a man would have looked and felt
shabby in this long service get-up; this one never gave it a thought,
or, if he did, it was only to wonder whether he should ever again, after
this time, put on that venerable "stove-pipe," and if so, what sort of
experiences would have been his in the interim.
Now there was a patter of feet in the passage, the door-handle turned
softly, and a little girl came in. She was a sweetly-pretty child, with
that rare combination of dark-lashed brown eyes and golden hair. Here,
if anywhere, was Laurence Stanninghame's soft place. His other progeny
was represented by two sturdy boys, combative of instinct and firm of
tread, and whose gambols, whether pacific or bellicose, were apt to
shake the rattletrap old semi-detached and the parental nerves in about
equal proportions; constituting, furthermore, a standing bone of
parental contention. This little one, however, having turned ten, was of
a companionable age; and to the male understanding the baby stage does
not, as a rule, commend itself.
She was full of the racket which had just taken place overhead; but to
this Laurence hardly listened. There was always a racket overhead, a
fight or a fall or a bumping. One more or less hardly mattered. He was
thinking of his own weakness. Would she feel parting with him? Children
as a rule were easily consoled. A new and gaudy toy would make them
forget anything. And appositely to this thought, the little one's mind
was also full of a marvellous engine she had seen the last time she had
been taken into London--one which wound up with a key and ran a great
distance without stopping.
Being alone--for by this time he had come to regard all display of
affection before others as a weakness--Laurence drew the child to him
and kissed her tenderly.
"And supposing that engine were some day to come puffing in, Fay;
to-morrow or the day after?" he said.
The little one's eyes danced. The toy was an expensive one, quite out of
reach for her, she knew. If only it were not! And now her delighted look
and her reply made him smile with a strange mixture of sadness and
cynicism. And as approaching footsteps heralded further invasion, he put
the child from him hurriedly, and went out. Hailing a tram car, he made
his way up to town to carry out the remainder of his sudden, though not
very extensive, preparations.
Now on the following evening arrived a package of toys, of a splendour
hitherto unparalleled within that dingy suburban semi-detached, and
there was a great banging of gorgeous drums and a tootling of glittering
trumpets, and little Fay was round-eyed with delight in the acquisition
of the wondrous locomotive, ultimately declining to go to sleep save
with one tiny fist shut tight round the chimney thereof. That would
counteract any passing effect that might be inspired by a vacant chair,
thought Laurence Stanninghame, amid the roar of the mail train speeding
through the raw haze of the early morning. Sentiment? feelings? What had
he to do with such? They were luxuries, and as such only for those who
could afford to indulge in them. He could not.