The Sign of the Spider Read online

  CHAPTER II.

  ADAM'S FIRST WIFE.

  The R. M. S. _Persian_ was cleaving her southward way through the smoothtranslucence of the tropical sea.

  It was the middle of the morning. Her passengers, scattered around herquarter-deck in the coolness of the sheltering awning, were amusingthemselves after their kind; some gregarious and chatting in groups,others singly, or in pairs, reading. The men were mostly in flannels andblazers, and deck-shoes; the women affected light array of a coolnature; and all looked as though it were too much trouble to move oreven to speak, though here and there an individual more enterprisingthan his or her fellows would make a spasmodic attempt at aconstitutional, said attempt usually resolving itself into five and ahalf feeble turns, up and down the clear part of the deck, to culminatein abrupt collapse; for it is warm in the tropical seas.

  "What a lazy Johnnie you are, Stanninghame! Now, what the deuce are youthinking about all this time, I wonder?"

  He addressed, who had been gazing out upon the sea and sky-line, plungedin dreamy thought, did not even turn his head.

  "Get into this chair, Holmes, if you want to talk," he said. "A fellowcan't wring his own neck and emit articulate sound at the same time.What?"

  The other, who had come up behind, laughed, and dropped into the emptydeck-chair beside Laurence. He was the latter's cabin chum, and the twohad become rather friendly.

  "Nothing to do and plenty of time to do it in," he went on, stretchinghimself and yawning. "I'm jolly sick of this voyage already."

  "And we're scarcely half through with it? It's a fact, Holmes, but I'mnot sick of it a bit."

  "Eh?" and the other stared. "That's odd, Stanninghame. You, I shouldhave thought, if anyone, would be just dog-gone tired of it by now. Why,you never even cut into any of the fun that's going--such as it is."

  "You may well put that in, Holmes. As, for instance--listen!"

  For the whanging of the piano in the saloon beneath had attained to aneven greater pitch of discord than was normally the case. To it wasadded the excruciating rasp of a fiddle.

  "Heavens! Are they immolating a stowaway cat down there?" murmuredLaurence, with a little shudder. "It would have been more humane to haveput the misguided brute to a painless end."

  Holmes spluttered.

  "It reminds me," he said, "of one voyage I made by this line. Some ofthe passengers got up what they called an 'Amusement Committee.'"

  "A fearful and wonderful monster!"

  "Just so. It's mission was to worry the soul out of each and all of us,in search of some nefarious gift. Oh, and we mustered plenty, from the'cello to the 'bones.' Well, what is going on down there now is sheerdelight in comparison. Imagine the present performance heaped up--onlyrelieved by caterwauls of about equal quality--and that from 6 A. M.until 'lights out.'"

  "I don't want to imagine it, thank you, Holmes; so spare what little ofthat faculty I still retain. But, say now, when was this eventfulvoyage?"

  "In the summer of '84."

  "Precisely. I remember now. It was in the newspapers at the time that inmore than one ship's log were entered strange reports of gruesome andwholly indefinable noises heard at night in certain latitudes. Some ofthe crews mutinied, and there was an instance on record of more than onehand, bursting with superstition, going mad and jumping overboard. So,you see, Holmes, your 'Amusement Committee' doubly deserved hanging."

  The delicious readiness of this "lie" so fetched Holmes that he openedhis head and emitted a howl of laughter. He made such a row, in fact,that neither of them heard the convulsively half-repressed splutterwhich burst forth somewhere behind them.

  "Well, you were going to explain how it is you haven't got sick of thevoyage yet," said Holmes, when his roar had subsided.

  "Was I? I didn't say so. What a chap you are for returning to worry apoint, Holmes. However, I don't mind telling you. The fact is, I enjoythis voyage because it is so thoroughly and delightfully restful. Youare not only allowed to do nothing, but are actually expected to performthat easy and congenial feat. There is nothing to worry you--absolutelynothing--not even a baby in the next cabin."

  "I don't mind a little worry now and then," objected the other, in thetone and with the look of one who was ignorant of the real meaning ofthe word. "It shakes one up a bit, don't you know--relieves the monotonyof life."

  "Oh, does it? Look here, Holmes; I don't say it in an'assert-my-superiority' sense, but I believe I'm a little older thanyou. Now, I've had a trifle too much of the commodity under discussion.In fact, I would take my chances of the monotony in order to dispensewith any more of the other thing."

  Holmes cast a furtive and curious glance at his companion, but made noimmediate reply. He was an average, good-looking, well-built specimen ofYoung England, and his healthy sun-burnt countenance showed, in itscheery serenity, that, as the other had hinted, he was not speaking fromknowledge. At any rate, it was a marked contrast to the rather lined andprematurely careworn countenance of Laurence Stanninghame, even as hisfrank, jolly laugh was to the half-stifled grin which would lurk aroundthe satirical corners of the latter's mouth when anything amused him.

  "What a row those women are making over there!" remarked Laurence, aspeal after peal of feminine laughter went up from one of the groupsabove referred to.

  "That ass Swaynston, I suppose," growled the other. "Don't know whatanybody can see funny about the fellow; he makes me sick. By the way, Ihaven't seen Miss Ormskirk on deck this morning."

  "That'll make Swaynston sick, won't it? Isn't he one of her poodles?"

  "Eh? Her what?"

  "Fetch and carry; stand up on his hind legs and beg. There--good dog!and all that sort of thing, you know; go to heel, too, when ordered."

  Holmes laughed again, this time in rather a shamefaced way, for he wasconscious of having filled the role whose subserviency was thuspungently characterized by his cynical companion.

  "Oh, dash it all, Stanninghame, don't be such an old bear!" he burstforth. "A fellow can't help doing things for a devilish pretty girl,eh?"

  "A good many fellows can't, apparently, for this one. Directly sheappears on the scene they go at her like flies at a honey pot. There'sthe doctor, and the fourth brass-button man--er, I beg his pardon, thefourth 'officer,'--and Swaynston, and yourself, and Heaven knows howmany more. And one gets hold of a cushion--which she doesn't want;another a wrap--of which the same holds good; two of you strive to renda deck-chair limb from limb in your eagerness to dump it down on thevery last spot in the ship where she desires to sit, what time you areall scowling at each other as though there was not room for any giventwo of you in the same world. I don't want to hurt your feelings,Holmes, but, upon my word, it's the most d---- ridiculous spectacle onearth."

  "I don't see why it should be," was the half-snuffy rejoinder. "There'snothing ridiculous in common civility."

  "No, only to see you all treading on each other's heels to do _konza_ toa woman who's nearly losing her life trying not to laugh at the crowd ofyou."

  "Hallo! what's this?" sung out Holmes, not sorry for an excuse to changethe subject. "Why, you used a Zulu word, Stanninghame, and yet you sayyou never were in South Africa before."

  "Well, and then? I've once or twice known fellows use a Greek word whohad never been near the land of Socrates in their lives."

  "Still, that's different. Every fellow learns Greek at school, but nofellow learns Zulu, eh?"

  "You can't swear to that. Well, never mind. Perhaps I have been muggingit up as a preliminary to coming out here. Note, however, Holmes, that Iused the word advisedly. _Konza_ does not mean to show civility, but todo homage, and that of a tolerably abject kind--in fact, to knuckleunder."

  "All the same, I believe you have been out here before," went on Holmes,staring at him with a new interest. "Only you're such a mysterious chapthat you won't let on."

  "Have it so, if you will. Only, aren't you rather drawing a red herringacross the trail, Holmes? We were talking about Miss Ormskirk." />
  "Um--yes, so we were. But, have you talked to her at all, Stanninghame?I believe even you would be fetched if you did."

  "H'm--well, I'd better leave it alone then, hadn't I, seeing that Iundertook this voyage not for love, but for money? What's her name, bythe way?"

  Holmes stared. "Her name," he began---- "Oh--er--I see; her other name?By Jove! it's an odd one. Lilith."

  "An old one too; the oldest she-name on record, bar none."

  "What? How does that come in?"

  "Tradition hath it that Lilith was Adam's first wife. That makes it theoldest she-name on record, doesn't it?"

  "Of course. What a rum chap you are, Stanninghame! Now, I wonder howmany fellows could have told one that?"

  "Well, I am a 'know-a-little-of-everything,' they tell me," saidLaurence, without a shade of self-complacency. "But, I say, what dothese two want bothering around? Not another subscription already?"

  Two individuals, armed with mysterious pencil and paper, were movingfrom group to group, with a word to each. The hawk-like profile of theone bespoke his nationality if not his tribe, even as the pug-nosed,squab-faced figure-head of the other spoke to his.

  "It's the 'sweep,'" said Holmes, with kindling interest. "They're goingto draw it in the smoke-room. Come along and see it. It'll be somethingto do."

  "But I don't want something to do. I want to do nothing, as I told youjust now, and---- Hallo! By George, he's gone!"

  One glance at the retreating Holmes, who was making all sail for thesmoke-room, and Laurence tranquilly resumed his formeroccupation--gazing out over the blue-green surface, to wit. Not long,however, was he to be left to the enjoyment of the same.

  "Can I have this chair? Is it anybody's?"

  He turned, but did not start at the voice, which was soft and wellmodulated. The two deck-chairs had been backed against the companion, inwhose doorway now stood framed the form of the speaker.

  Rather tall, of exquisite proportions, billowing in splendid curves fromthe perfectly round waist, the form was about as complete an example offemale anatomy as humanity could show of whatever race or clime. Thehead, well set, was carried rather proudly, the cut of the cool, lightblouse displaying a pillar-like throat. Hazel eyes, melting, darkfringed; brows strongly marked, enough to show plenty of character,without being heavy; hair abundant, curled in a fringe upon theforehead, and drawn back from the head in sheeny, dark brown waves. Suchwas the vision which Laurence Stanninghame beheld, as he turned at thesound of the voice. Well, what then? He had seen it before.

  "It isn't anybody's chair," he replied, rising.

  "Oh, thank you," she said, stepping forth. "No, don't trouble; I cancarry it myself," she added.

  "Where do you want it taken to?" he said, ignoring her protest, andthinking, with grim amusement, how he was about to fulfil the very rolehe had been satirizing his younger friend about, namely, fetch and carryfor the spoilt beauty of the quarter-deck.

  "Oh, thanks; anywhere that's cool."

  "Then you can't do better than leave it where it is," he rejoined, witha quiet smile, setting down the chair again and resuming his own.

  Lilith Ormskirk smiled too, but she made no objection, slidingcomfortably into the chair, and gazing meditatively at the point of theneat and shapely deck-shoe just peeping forth from beneath her skirt.

  "What are they doing over there?" she began; "drawing the 'sweep,' arethey not? How is it you are not there too, Mr. Stanninghame? Even thoseof the men who won't help us in getting up any fun are always readyenough for anything of that kind. Well, I suppose it gives themsomething to do."

  Something to do! that eternal "something to do!"

  "But that's just what I don't want--not on board this ship, at anyrate," he retorted. "It's a grand opportunity for lazing, an opportunitythat can't occur often in life, and I want to make the most of it."

  She glanced furtively at his face. It was a face that interested her,had done so since she first beheld it. A very out-of-the-common face,she had decided; and the careless reserve, the very indifference of itsowner's habit of speech, had powerfully added to her interest. They hadmet before, had exchanged a few words now and again, but had neverconversed.

  "A thing that is a standing puzzle to me," he went on--"would be,rather, if I knew a little less of human nature--is the alacrity withwhich people waste their precious time in order to make a few shillings.It isn't a craving after profit either, for there can't be much profitabout it. Yet Myers there, the Hebraic instinct ever to the fore, mustneeds throw away the splendid recuperative opportunities afforded by asea voyage, must needs spend the whole of each and every morning gettingup that miserable 'sweep.' It must be the sheer Hebraic instinct ofdelighting to handle coin--the ecstasy of contact with it even."

  "And the other--the one who helps him? He's not Hebraic?"

  "No, he's English. Therefore he must be forever 'getting up' something.We pride ourselves upon our solid deliberation, yet we are about thefussiest and most interfering race on the face of the globe."

  "Then you don't have anything to do with the popular midday delight?"

  "Oh, yes. I hand them my shilling every morning when they come round,and pouch tranquilly later on what they see fit to restore to me as theresult of that modest investment."

  She laughed, and as she did so Laurence looked her full in the face. Hewanted to find out again what there could be in this girl that reducedeverybody to subjection so utter and complete. Was it in the swift flashof the fringed eyes, in the sensuous attractiveness of a certainswarthy, golden, mantling shade of colour which harmonized so well withthe bright clearness of the eyes, with the smooth serenity of the brow?He could not determine; yet in that brief fraction of a moment, as helooked, he was uneasily conscious of a certain magnetic thrillcommunicating itself even to him.

  "You are stronger-minded than I am," she said. "I'm afraid I betshockingly at times."

  "Well, whenever I do I invariably lose, which is a first rate curativeto any temptation towards that especial form of dissipation."

  "Look now, Mr. Stanninghame, I'm going to take you to task," she wenton. "Why won't you ever help us in getting up anything?"

  "But I do help you."

  "You do? Why, there was that concert the other night--you refused whenyou were asked to take part in it."

  "But I did take part in it--as audience. You must have an audience, youknow. It's essential to the performance."

  "Don't be provoking, now," she said, with a laugh which belied therebuke, for this sort of fencing delighted her. "You never take part inour dances."

  "Dances? Did you ever happen to notice the top of my head?"

  "I don't think so," she replied, with a splutter of mirth, wonderingwhat whimsicality was coming next. "Why?"

  "Only that its covering is getting rather thin, as no self-respectinghaircutter ever loses the opportunity of reminding me."

  "That's nothing. Look at Mr. Dyson, for instance. Now he might say that.Yet he is a most indefatigable dancer."

  "Yes, and that ostrich-egg of his bobbing up and down above the gay andgiddy rout is one of the most ridiculous sights on earth. Are you urgingme to furnish a similar absurdity?"

  "But you might do something to help amuse us. In fact, it is only yourduty."

  "Hallo! Excuse me, Miss Ormskirk, but that's exactly what that fellowMac--Mac--something--I never can remember his name--the doctor, youknow--was trying to drive into me the other night. I told him I didn'tcome on board this ship for the purpose of amusing myfellow-creatures--not any--but with the object of being transported toCape Town with all possible despatch."

  "Then you leave the ship at Cape Town? Are you, too, going on toJohannesburg?"

  "Not being dead, yes."

  "Not being dead? Why, what in the world do you mean?"

  "Oh, only that Holmes was asking after all his old friends one night inthe smoke-room, and all who were not dead had gone to Johannesburg.Others I've heard talking the same way. So I've got into the
habit ofthinking there are but two states--death and Johannesburg."

  "Tell me, Mr. Stanninghame," said Lilith, struggling with a laugh, "areyou ever by any chance serious?"

  "Oh, yes; I'm never anything else."

  She hardly felt inclined to laugh now. There was a subtle something inthe tone--a something underlying the whimsicality of the words, thatseemed to quell her rising mirth. Again she glanced at his face, andfelt her interest deepen tenfold.

  "We may meet again then," she said, her tone unconsciously softening; "Iam going to Johannesburg soon."

  Meet again? Why, they had only just met; and what was it to him? Yetstill more was he conscious of a thrill as of latent witchery thrownover him, as he lounged there in the warm luxuriousness of the tropicalnoontide, with which this beautiful creature at his side, in hercareless attitude, all symmetry and grace, seemed so wholly in keeping.

  "What a strange name that is of yours," he said, in the abrupt,unthought-out way which was so characteristic of him.

  She started slightly at its very abruptness, then smiled.

  "Is it?" she said; "well, your own is not a very common one."

  "No, it isn't; which is a bore at times, because people will persist inspelling it wrong. It might have been worse, though. They went in forgiving us all more or less cloth-of-gold sort of names, though minesmacks rather of the cloister than of the lists. One of my brothers theydubbed Aylmer. He was in a regiment, and the mess would persist incalling him Jack, for short. He resented it at first--afterwards came toprefer it. Said it was more convenient. Well, it was."

  "Mine is older than that. The very oldest feminine name on record," shesaid, with just a spice of quiet mischief. "Lilith was Adam's firstwife."

  If she thought the other was going to look foolish at hearing his ownwords thus reproduced in such literal fashion, she never made a greatermistake in her life.

  "So tradition hath it," he rejoined, with perfect unconcern. "It's aqueer out-of-the-way sort of name--I'm not sure I don't rather like it.There's a creeping suggestion of witchery about it, too, which is on thewhole attractive."

  He was looking at her straight in the eyes, for they had both risen, theluncheon-bell having rung. She unflinchingly returned the glance, whichon both sides was that of two adversaries mentally appraising each otherprior to a rapier-bout.

  "Then beware such unholy spells," she replied, with a light butenigmatical laugh. And turning, she left him.

  "BEWARE OF SUCH UNHOLY SPELLS," SHE REPLIED.]

  Now Holmes, who, bursting with astonishment and trepidation as he beheldhow his friend was engaged, came bustling up, with a scared and furtivedemeanour.

  "By the Lord, old man, we just have put our foot in it," he sputtered."All the time we were sitting here, Miss Ormskirk was just inside thecompanion. She must have heard every word we said."

  "Don't care a hang if she did."

  "Man alive, but we were talking about her! About _her_, and she heardit! Don't you understand?"

  "Perfectly; still I don't care a hang. A hang? No, nor the rope, nor thedrop, nor the whole jolly gallows do I care. Will that do?"

  Holmes gasped. This fellow Stanninghame was a lunatic. Mad, by Jove!Still gasping as he thought of the enormity of the situation, he leftwithout another word, diving below to try and drown his confusion in awhisky and soda, iced.

  But the other, still lingering on the now deserted deck, was consciousof a very unwonted sensation. The spell which he had derided sobitterly when beholding others drawn within its toils had begun to weaveitself around him. This vague stirring of his mental pulses, what did itmean? Heavens! it was horrible. It brought back old memories, whosetin-pot unreality was never recalled save as subject matter for bittergibe and mockery. He could not have believed it possible.

  "It's the nerves," he told himself. "These years of squalid worry havedone it. My nerves are shaken to bits. Well, I must pull them togetheragain. But oh, the bosh of it! the utter bosh of it!"