They were now on the other slope of the great mountain chain which shut in the Ba-gcatya country on that side, and, judging by the landmarks, it seemed to Laurence that the surroundings wore an aspect not absolutely unfamiliar, and that they could not be far out of the way by which he had been brought in a captive. There was the same broad belt of desolate land which took many days to traverse—a land of gloomy forest and sluggish river, reed-fringed, crocodile-haunted; and night after night they would build their camp-fire, resting secure in the red circle of its cheery flame—while the howling of ravening beasts kept up dismal chorus in the outer darkness beyond. It was a primeval idyll, the wandering of these two—the man, the product of the highest fin-de-siÈcle civilization; the woman, the daughter of a savage race. Yet in such wandering, savage and civilized were curiously near akin. They were free as air—untrammelled by any conventionality or artificial needs. The land furnished ample subsistence, animal and vegetable. The wild game which supplied them with food could not have been more free.

"Would you rather have been rescued some other way, Nyonyoba?" said the girl one evening, as they were sitting by the camp-fire.

"No. There is no other way I should have preferred. See now, Lindela. What if we were to return to your people? Surely they would believe now in the Sign of the Spider—and that the conqueror is greater than the conquered?"

"Not so," she answered, and her eyes, which had brightened at the first words of his reply, became clouded and sad. "They would put us to death now—both of us. But were it otherwise—would you really desire to return?"

"One might do worse. I don't know that the blessings of civilization are such blessings after all, which to you is a riddle."

He relapsed into silence and thought. There were times when, with the riches upon him, he was consumed with a perfectly feverish longing to return to civilization. There were other times, again, when he looked back with more than a lingering regret to the pleasant land of the Ba-gcatya. Furthermore, Lindela had entwined herself around his heart more than he knew. Not an atom of the intrepidity of devotion she had displayed in order to compass his final rescue was thrown away upon him—any more than her deportment since. Through the toilsomeness and peril of their journeying no word of complaint or despondency escaped her. She was always sunny-natured, cheerful, self-sacrificing, resourceful—in short, a delightful companion. Yet—she was a savage, he thought, with a curl of the lip, as before his mind's eye arose the contrast between her and her civilized sisters, with their artificiality and moods and caprices, and petty spites and fictitious ailments, and general contentiousness all around. It was by no means certain he would not have returned to dwell with her among her own people, had that course been open—but it was not. Only the return to civilization lay before him; and what to do with Lindela—for he had not the slightest desire to part with her.

Meanwhile they had reached the perilous phase of their wanderings. Ruins of multitudinous villages lay in their path at every turn, but, what was worse, signs of human occupation began to show once more, and human occupation meant hostile occupation. It was fortunate that the land had been doubly raided—by the slave-hunters and the Ba-gcatya—because in its depopulation lay their safety. But those who had escaped would not be likely to view with any friendly glance a representative of each despoiling factor, as exemplified in these two. So they avoided villages, which was easy enough by careful observation ahead. What was less easy, however, was to avoid wandering parties.

Nor was it always practicable. Once they came right into such a horde—near enough, that is, for their presence to be discovered, and for a whole day were they stealthily followed, their pursuers only drawing off owing to nightfall and the proximity of other tribes hostile to themselves. Another time they nearly walked into the midst of an encampment while a cannibal feast was in progress. At sight of the human limbs hung up, the filed teeth and tattooed faces of these savages tearing at their horrible repast, Lindela shuddered with repulsion and anger.

"See there, Nyonyoba," she said, when they had withdrawn beyond hearing, "do not the Ba-gcatya act rightly in stamping out these foul IzÍma—who devour the flesh of their own kindred, like wild dogs?"

"I think so. And we, who capture them to sell them, do we not send them to a better fate, where they can no more indulge in such repellent appetites?" And this she did not attempt to gainsay.

For months they journeyed on thus, peril their companion at every step, the more so as they gained the more inhabited tracts. Once they fell in with a petty Arab chief and his following. This man was known to Laurence, and treated them well and hospitably while they remained at his camp. But before they departed he said:

"What sum will purchase this girl, my friend, for by now thou must have had enough of her? She would fetch large money at Khartoum, whither I can forward her, and I will deal with thee fairly. Yes, Allah is great. I will only make my profit on her. The price shall be liberal."

Then Laurence Stanninghame, the renegade, the man who had thrown all considerations of duty and feeling to the winds as so much lumber, so much meaningless conventionality, felt as shocked and disgusted as ever he could have done in his most foolish days, what time illusions were as vivid, as golden as ever. But, remembering himself, he replied in an even tone:

"No sum will purchase her, Rahman ben Zuhdi. Were I dying at this moment, and large wealth could bring me fifty years more of life, I would not sell her. All that the world contains could not purchase her, for she has restored me to life at the peril of her own, again and again,—nay, more, has restored me to that which alone renders life a possession of any value. I have dealt in slaves, but this is a daughter of a race of kings.

"The People of the Spider," said the Arab thoughtfully, flashing a curious glance at Lindela, who stood some little way apart. "They grow their women fine if they are all as this one. Well, I did but make thee the offer, my brother; but if a man values anything above gold, all the gold in the world will not induce him to part therewith. Fare thee well. We part friends."

"As friends indeed do we part, O Rahman," replied Laurence. And they resumed their respective ways.

As time went on, Lindela's manner seemed to undergo a change—her spirits to flag. Was it the fearful malarial heat of the low-lying forest country, often swampy, which was affecting her? thought Laurence with concern. He himself was inured to it, but this daughter of a healthy upland race, accustomed to the breezy, equable climate of her mountain home—on her the steaming heat of the rotting vegetation and marshy soil might conceivably be beginning to tell.

They were resting one day during the noontide heat. No burning rays from the outside sun could scorch here, for the place was dim with thick foliage and creepers trailing from the limbs of great forest trees. Both had fallen asleep.

Suddenly Lindela started up. A sharp wringing pain, seeming to begin on the left shoulder, went through her frame. It spread—down her arm—then through to the other shoulder—down the other arm. What was it? A cramp caught from the treacherous chill of the humid soil? Perhaps. Well, it would soon pass. Then Laurence began to stir in his sleep. The sight made her forget her pain. He must not awaken; he needed rest. Noiselessly plucking a leafy branch she went over to him and began softly to fan him. This was effective. His even, regular breathing told that he slumbered peacefully, restfully, once more.

Soon she became aware that her powers were failing her. Her arm seemed to become cramped, paralyzed, and a mist floated before her eyes. What did it mean? Her lips opened to call aloud—then closed, uttering no sound. Why should he be disturbed because she was suffering a little pain? thought this savage—this daughter of a race of savage kings.

But the mist deepened before her failing vision. She swayed where she sat, then fell heavily forward—upon him—the branch wherewith she had been fanning him striking him sharply across the face.

Laurence sprang to his feet, unconsciously throwing her from him. His first impression was that he had been surprised in his sleep by an enemy.

"Lindela! What is it?" he cried, raising her up and supporting her. And then his dark face turned a livid ashen white—for with the dull stupor which lay heavy in the usually bright eyes, his own had rested upon something else. The shapely shoulder was swollen to an abnormal size, and at the back of it were two small round punctures.

"She has been bitten. A snake, of course," he muttered. "And it is too late."

"Yes, it is too late, Nyonyoba," she murmured. "Yet I do not think I have been bitten—not by a snake, or I should have known it."

"But you have been. When was this? Why did you not awaken me?" And his voice startled even himself, so fierce was it in its grief.

"Why should I awaken you, beloved, you who needed rest?" she murmured, groping for his hand. "Yes, it is too late. It was some time ago. I thought it was a cramp, but I must have been bitten."

Laurence was thinking—and thinking hard. What remedy was there? None. It was even as she had said—too late. The poison had penetrated her whole system.

"I am dying, beloved—and shall soon go into the Dark Unknown——" she murmured, more drowsily than before. "Yet it matters nothing, for those of our nation do not fear death. And listen. I heard the Arab's proposal to you, and your answer thereto—yet, when you returned to your people, what would have become of me?"

"I AM DYING, BELOVED—AND SHALL SOON GO INTO THE DARK UNKNOWN."

She was but voicing his own thoughts of many and many a time before. Yet now Laurence felt almost startled. Was it the clear intuition which rightly or wrongly is believed to accompany the hour of dissolution? Then he remembered she could have learned much about civilized peoples through the talk of Tyisandhlu and her father.

"I die, beloved, but I welcome death," she went on,—"for I have lived—ah, yes, I have lived. I feel no pain now, and I die in your arms. Surely my itongo[7] will not weep mournfully on the voices of the night as others do; surely it will laugh for very joy, for very love, because of this my end, until time shall die—will it not, Nyonyoba, my beloved? Say—will it not?"

But Laurence could not say anything, for, lo—a marvel. This man, deadened for long years to feeling or ruth; this coldly pitiless trafficker in the sufferings of human beings; in whose cynical creed now such a love as that of this savage girl held no place—felt now as though a hand were gripping him by the throat, choking all power of reply. And the call of birds, high among the tree-tops, alone broke the silence, in the semi-gloom of the forest aisles.

Lindela's voice had sunk until it was well-nigh inaudible, and Laurence was constrained to bend his head to hers in order to catch her every word. Then—a flash of gladness seemed momentarily to light up the drowsy eyes, and she spoke no more. Her eyelids closed, her breathing grew fainter and fainter, and soon Laurence knew that that which lay heavy within his arms was no longer a living woman. Lindela had passed.

For long he sat thus. Then a faint rustling sound in the dry wood of an immense fallen tree-trunk caught his ear. Ha!—the snake which had been the cause of her death! It, at any rate, should die. Gently he laid her down, then snatching up a stick which had been used to carry one of the loads he advanced towards the sound.

Something was struggling among the dry bark; with the stick he broke this away. There fell out an enormous spider.

He started back in horror and loathing. The hairy monster brought back too gruesome a reminiscence. Then he noticed that it looked as if it had received injury through crushing, two or three of the hideous tentacles being partially or wholly broken off.

Then, as he gazed with loathing upon the sprawling thing, it seemed that the missing link was supplied. Lindela, in her sleep, must have moved over on to this horror, though not heavily enough to crush it. It had buried its venomous nippers in her shoulder, prior to crawling away to die.

A shiver ran through his frame as he beat to death the great noisome insect—and his blood seemed to chill with a superstitious fear. It seemed too strange, too marvellous to be a mere coincidence. Lindela had defied the traditions of her race, and now she had met her death through the agency of the very embodiment of those traditions. She, a daughter of the Kings of the People of the Spider, had met her death through the Spider's bite. It was horrifying in its sinister appropriateness. Was it really a thing of witchcraft? Did the Fiend have actual bodily power here, in "the dark places of the earth"? Had this demoniacal influence followed her to wreak its vengeance here, at such a distance from the home and country to which she would return no more?

When Laurence Stanninghame resumed his journey the next day he left behind him a grave—a deep, secure grave—a solitary grave in the heart of the untrodden forest. His journeyings henceforth must be alone; but ofttimes his thoughts would go back to that nameless grave, and to her who rested forever therein. Only a savage! Only a heathen! Yes—but if brave, devoted, self-sacrificing love is of any account at all in the scheme of Christian virtues, where would this savage, this heathen, come in at the day of awards? Where indeed, among the multitude of gold-worshipping, form-adoring Pharisees? Truth to tell, Laurence believed but dimly in the day of awards. Yet did it exist, he thought he knew the answer to his own question.