The Sign of the Spider Part 14

"But what's the object of the trip, Hazon? Gold?"

"No."

"Stones?"

"Not stones."

"Ivory, then?"

"That's it; ivory," and a gleam of saturnine mirth shot across the other's dark features.

"You have to go a good way up for that now, don't you, Hazon?"

"Yes, a good way up. And it's contraband."

"The devil it is!"

Hazon nodded. Then he went to the door and looked out.

"Leave it open. It's better so. We can hear any one coming," he said, returning. "And now, Stanninghame, listen carefully, and we'll talk out the scheme. If you're on, well and good; if you're dead off it, why, I told you I had read you, and you're not the man to let drop by word or hint to a living soul any of what has pa.s.sed between us."

"Quite right, Hazon. You never formed a safer judgment in your life."

Then, for upwards of an hour, the pair talked together; and when the luncheon bell rang, and Laurence Stanninghame took his seat at the table along with the rest, to talk scrip in the scathingly despondent way in which the darling topic was conversationally dealt with in these days, he was conscious that he had turned the corner of a curious psychological crisis in his life.

In the afternoon he took his way down to Booyseus. Would he find Lilith in? It was almost too much good luck to hope to find her alone. As he walked, he was filled with a strange elation. The dull pain of a very near parting was largely counteracted by the manner of it. Such a parting had been before his mind for long; but then he would have gone forth broken down, ruined, more utterly without hope in life than ever.

Now it was different. He was going forth upon an adventure fraught with all manner of stirring potentialities--one from which he would return wealthy, or, as his friend and thenceforth comrade had said, one from which he would not return at all.

Had his luck already begun to turn, he thought? As he mounted the _stoep_ Lilith herself came forth to meet him. It struck him that the omen was a good one.

"Why, you are becoming quite a stranger," she said. But the note of gladness underlying the reproach did not escape him, nor a certain lighting up of her face as they clasped hands, with the subtile lingering pressure now never absent from that outwardly formal method of greeting.

"Am I?" he answered, thinking how soon, how very soon, he would become one in reality. "But you were going out?" For she had on her hat and gloves, and carried a sunshade.

"I was. You are only just in time--only just. But I won't now that you have come."

"On the contrary, I want you to. I want you to come out with me, and at once, before an irruption of bores renders that manoeuvre impracticable. Will you?"

"Of course I will. Which way shall we go? Up to the town?"

"Not much. Right in the opposite direction, and as far away from it as possible. Are you alone?"

"Not quite alone. Aunt is having her afternoon sleep; but May and George went to the town this morning. They intended to have lunch at the Stevensons', and then go on to the cricket ground. There's a match or something on to-day. George was cross because I wouldn't go too; but I had a touch of headache, and went to sleep instead. And oh, Laurence, I had such a horrible dream. It was about you."

"Oh, was it?" The words rapped themselves out quickly, nervously, more so than she had ever heard him talk before. But the awful and ghastly crisis of the morning was recalled by her words. "About me? Tell it to me."

"I can't. It was all rather vague, and yet so real. I dreamed that you were in the face of some strange, some horrible danger, against which I was powerless to warn you. I struggled to, even prayed. Then I was able.

I warned you, and the danger seemed to pa.s.s. And oh, Laurence, I woke up crying!"

"Your dream was a true one, my Lilith. No, I will not tell you how or in what way. And will you always be empowered to warn me--to save me, my sweet guardian angel? I shall need it often enough during the next--er--in the time that is coming."

His face had taken on an unwonted expression, and his tones were suspiciously husky. Lilith looked wonderingly at him, and her own expression was grave and earnest. The sweet eyes became dewy with unshed tears.

"You know I will, if I may," she answered, stealing a hand into his for a sympathetic pressure, as they walked side by side.

They had been walking at a good pace over the open, treeless veldt, and the roofs of Booyseus were now quite dwarfed behind them.

"But, tell me," she continued, "are things any better? Oh, it is dreadful that you should have come all this way only to be more completely ruined than before--dreadful! I am always thinking about it.

Yet I am of a hopeful disposition, as I told you. I never despair.

Things will take a turn. They must."

"They have taken a turn, Lilith, but not in the direction you mean. I am going away."

She started. She knew that those words must one day be spoken. Now that they had been, they hurt.

"Back to England?"

The words came out breathlessly, and with a sort of gasp.

"No, not there. I am going up country, into the interior."

"Oh!"

There was relief in the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. For the moment she lost sight of all that was involved by such a destination. They would still be in the same land. That was something--or seemed so.

Now all the latent instincts, never half drawn forth, surged like molten volcano fires through Laurence Stanninghame's soul. The dead and stormy nature, slain within him, revivified, burst forth into warm, pulsating, struggling, rebellious life. This striving of heart against heart, this desperate effort still to patch up the rents in the flimsy veil, moved him infinitely. The veldt on the Wit.w.a.tersrand is as open and devoid of cover as a billiard-table. The two were visible for miles. But for this he knew not what he might have done--rather he knew full well what he certainly would have done.

They took refuge in practical topics; they talked of the up-country trip.

"You are very friendly with that Mr. Hazon, are you not, Laurence?

n.o.body else is, and there are strange stories, not told, but hinted about him. He is a man I should be almost afraid of, and yet half admire. He strikes me as one who would be a terrible and relentless enemy, but as true as steel, true to self-sacrificing point, to a friend."

"That's exactly my opinion. Now, Hazon and I suit each other down to the ground. I have an especial faculty, remember, for getting on with unpopular individuals."

Thus they talked, and at length time forced them to turn their steps homeward. And as the sun rays began to slant golden upon the surrounding veldt, it seemed to Laurence that even that _triste_ wilderness took on a glow that was more than of earth. How that afternoon, that walk, would dwell within his memory, stamped there indelibly! He thought how the day had opened, of that gnawing mental struggle culminating in--what? But for this girl at his side he would now be--what? She had saved him, she alone--her confidence in him, her high opinion of him, and--her love.

Yes, her love. He looked upon her as she walked beside him, entrancing beyond words in her rich, warm beauty, a perfect dream of grace and symmetry. Even the hot sunlight seemed to linger, as with a kiss, upon the dark, brilliant loveliness of her eyes, on the soft curve of her lips.

"You are cruel, sorceress," he broke forth. "You have made yourself look especially enchanting because soon I shall see you no more. You are looking perfect."

She flashed a bright smile upon him, but it seemed to fade into a shadow, as of pain.

"Am I? Well, Laurence, one knows instinctively when one is looking one's best. It would be affectation to pretend otherwise. And I love to make myself look bright and sweet and attractive for you. And now--oh, dear, we are nearly home again. Come in with me now and stay the evening. We shall not be alone together again, I fear--this evening, I mean. But you will be going away so soon now, and I must see as much of you as I can."

He needed no persuasion. And as Lilith had said, they were not alone together again. But even the jealous George, who came back from the town more cantankerous than ever on learning of this addition, found balm in Gilead. That brute Stanninghame was going away up-country soon, he put it. Heaven send a convenient shot of malaria or a providential a.s.segai prod to keep him there forever!