eir owners stand gazing
down upon this prostrate white man. Then from each broad chest a gasp
bursts forth:

"_Au!_ The Sign! THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER!"

CHAPTER XX.

TO WHAT END!

"The Sign of the Spider!" Laurence Stanninghame lying there, his
faculties half dazed by the shock of his fall and the pain of his wound,
hearing the words--uttered as they were in pure Zulu--almost persuaded
himself that the terrible events of that day had been a dream. But no,
it was real enough. His half-unclosed eyes took in the sea of grim, dark
faces pressing forward to gaze upon him. "The Sign of the Spider?" What
did it--what could it mean, that it should be all-powerful to stay those
devouring spears, to avert from him the grisly death of blood, whose
bitterness even then was already past? Then, as for the first time, he
suffered his glance to follow the direction of theirs. He saw a strange
thing.

The metal box had come forth, either jerked from its resting-place
during his fall, or unconsciously plucked thence by his own hand in the
last moment of his extremity, and now, still secured by the steel chain,
it lay upon his breast. And oh! marvel of marvels! Gazing thus upon it,
focussed by his half-closed eyelids and confused senses--the straggling
monogram with its quaint turns and flourishes, lying brown upon the more
shining metal, seemed to take exactly the form and aspect of a great
sprawling tarantula. "The Sign of the Spider" had been their cry! And
these were "The People of the Spider!" What magic, what mystery was
this? Lilith's last gift, Lilith's image; even her very name! It had
indeed acted as a talisman, as a "charm" to stand between him and the
most deadly of peril, as her aspiration had worded it. Verily, again had
Lilith's love availed to stand between himself and a swift, sure, and
bloody death! A marvel, and a stupendous one.

All this flashed through his mind as the Ba-gcatya crowded up around
him, the hubbub of their excited voices sinking into an awestruck murmur
as they gazed upon the man who wore "The Sign of the Spider." No wonder
this man should have come forth alive from the ring of death, they
decided,--he alone,--wearing that sign. And he alone had come forth.

All sounds of conflict had now ceased, giving way to the exultant shouts
and bass laughter of the victorious savages looting the property of the
slavers. Not a man was left alive up there, Laurence knew only too well.
He alone was sp