XXVI.
THE VALLEY OF SPIDERS.
Towards mid-day the three pursuers came abruptly round a bend in thetorrent bed upon the sight of a very broad and spacious valley. Thedifficult and winding trench of pebbles along which they had tracked thefugitives for so long expanded to a broad slope, and with a common impulsethe three men left the trail, and rode to a little eminence set witholive-dun trees, and there halted, the two others, as became them, alittle behind the man with the silver-studded bridle.
For a space they scanned the great expanse below them with eager eyes. Itspread remoter and remoter, with only a few clusters of sere thorn busheshere and there, and the dim suggestions of some now waterless ravine tobreak its desolation of yellow grass. Its purple distances melted at lastinto the bluish slopes of the further hills--hills it might be of agreener kind--and above them, invisibly supported, and seeming indeed tohang in the blue, were the snow-clad summits of mountains--that grewlarger and bolder to the northwestward as the sides of the valley drewtogether. And westward the valley opened until a distant darkness underthe sky told where the forests began. But the three men looked neithereast nor west, but only steadfastly across the valley.
The gaunt man with the scarred lip was the first to speak. "Nowhere," hesaid, with a sigh of disappointment in his voice. "But, after all, theyhad a full day's start."
"They don't know we are after them," said the little man on the whitehorse.
"_She_ would know," said the leader bitterly, as if speaking tohimself.
"Even then they can't go fast. They've got no beast but the mule, and allto-day the girl's foot has been bleeding----"
The man with the silver bridle flashed a quick intensity of rage on him."Do you think I haven't seen that?" he snarled.
"It helps, anyhow," whispered the little man to himself.
The gaunt man with the scarred lip stared impassively. "They can't be overthe valley," he said. "If we ride hard----"
He glanced at the white horse and paused.
"Curse all white horses!" said the man with the silver bridle, and turnedto scan the beast his curse included.
The little man looked down between the melancholy ears of his steed.
"I did my best," he said.
The two others stared again across the valley for a space. The gaunt manpassed the back of his hand across the scarred lip.
"Come up!" said the man who owned the silver bridle, suddenly. The littleman started and jerked his rein, and the horse hoofs of the three made amultitudinous faint pattering upon the withered grass as they turned backtowards the trail...
They rode cautiously down the long slope before them, and so came througha waste of prickly twisted bushes and strange dry shapes of thornybranches that grew amongst the rocks, into the levels below. And there thetrail grew faint, for the soil was scanty, and the only herbage was thisscorched dead straw that lay upon the ground. Still, by hard scanning, byleaning beside the horses' necks and pausing ever and again, even thesewhite men could contrive to follow after their prey.
There were trodden places, bent and broken blades of the coarse grass, andever and again the sufficient intimation of a footmark. And once theleader saw a brown smear of blood where the half-caste girl may have trod.And at that under his breath he cursed her for a fool.
The gaunt man checked his leader's tracking, and the little man on thewhite horse rode behind, a man lost in a dream. They rode one afteranother, the man with the silver bridle led the way, and they spoke nevera word. After a time it came to the little man on the white horse that theworld was very still. He started out of his dream. Besides the littlenoises of their horses and equipment, the whole great valley kept thebrooding quiet of a painted scene.
Before him went his master and his fellow, each intently leaning forwardto the left, each impassively moving with the paces of his horse; theirshadows went before them--still, noiseless, tapering attendants; andnearer a crouched cool shape was his own. He looked about him. What was ithad gone? Then he remembered the reverberation from the banks of the gorgeand the perpetual accompaniment of shifting, jostling pebbles. And,moreover----? There was no breeze. That was it! What a vast, still placeit was, a monotonous afternoon slumber! And the sky open and blank exceptfor a sombre veil of haze that had gathered in the upper valley.
He straightened his back, fretted with his bridle, puckered his lips towhistle, and simply sighed. He turned in his saddle for a time, and staredat the throat of the mountain gorge out of which they had come. Blank!Blank slopes on either side, with never a sign of a decent beast or tree--much less a man. What a land it was! What a wilderness! He dropped againinto his former pose.
It filled him with a momentary pleasure to see a wry stick of purple blackflash out into the form of a snake, and vanish amidst the brown. Afterall, the infernal valley _was_ alive. And then, to rejoice him stillmore, came a little breath across his face, a whisper that came and went,the faintest inclination of a stiff black-antlered bush upon a littlecrest, the first intimations of a possible breeze. Idly he wetted hisfinger, and held it up.
He pulled up sharply to avoid a collision with the gaunt man, who hadstopped at fault upon the trail. Just at that guilty moment he caught hismaster's eye looking towards him.
For a time he forced an interest in the tracking. Then, as they rode onagain, he studied his master's shadow and hat and shoulder, appearing anddisappearing behind the gaunt man's nearer contours. They had ridden fourdays out of the very limits of the world into this desolate place, shortof water, with nothing but a strip of dried meat under their saddles, overrocks and mountains, where surely none but these fugitives had ever beenbefore--for _that_!
And all this was for a girl, a mere wilful child! And the man had wholecityfuls of people to do his basest bidding--girls, women! Why in the nameof passionate folly _this_ one in particular? asked the little man,and scowled at the world, and licked his parched lips with a blackenedtongue. It was the way of the master, and that was all he knew. Justbecause she sought to evade him...
His eye caught a whole row of high-plumed canes bending in unison, andthen the tails of silk that hung before his neck flapped and fell. Thebreeze was growing stronger. Somehow it took the stiff stillness out ofthings--and that was well.
"Hullo!" said the gaunt man.
All three stopped abruptly.
"What?" asked the master. "What?"
"Over there," said the gaunt man, pointing up the valley.
"What?"
"Something coming towards us."
And as he spoke a yellow animal crested a rise and came bearing down uponthem. It was a big wild dog, coming before the wind, tongue out, at asteady pace, and running with such an intensity of purpose that he did notseem to see the horsemen he approached. He ran with his nose up,following, it was plain, neither scent nor quarry. As he drew nearer thelittle man felt for his sword. "He's mad," said the gaunt rider.
"Shout!" said the little man, and shouted.
The dog came on. Then when the little man's blade was already out, itswerved aside and went panting by them and passed. The eyes of the littleman followed its flight. "There was no foam," he said. For a space the manwith the silver-studded bridle stared up the valley. "Oh, come on!" hecried at last. "What does it matter?" and jerked his horse into movementagain.
The little man left the insoluble mystery of a dog that fled from nothingbut the wind, and lapsed into profound musings on human character. "Comeon!" he whispered to himself. "Why should it be given to one man to say'Come on!' with that stupendous violence of effect? Always, all his life,the man with the silver bridle has been saying that. If _I_ saidit--!" thought the little man. But people marvelled when the master wasdisobeyed even in the wildest things. This half-caste girl seemed to him,seemed to every one, mad--blasphemous almost. The little man, by way ofcomparison, reflected on the gaunt rider with the scarred lip, as stalwartas his master, as brave and, indeed, perhaps braver, and yet for him therewas obedience, nothing but to
give obedience duly and stoutly...
Certain sensations of the hands and knees called the little man back tomore immediate things. He became aware of something. He rode up beside hisgaunt fellow. "Do you notice the horses?" he said in an undertone.
The gaunt face looked interrogation.
"They don't like this wind," said the little man, and dropped behind asthe man with the silver bridle turned upon him.
"It's all right," said the gaunt-faced man.
They rode on again for a space in silence. The foremost two rode downcastupon the trail, the hindmost man watched the haze that crept down thevastness of the valley, nearer and nearer, and noted how the wind grew instrength moment by moment. Far away on the left he saw a line of darkbulks--wild hog, perhaps, galloping down the valley, but of that he saidnothing, nor did he remark again upon the uneasiness of the horses.
And then he saw first one and then a second great white ball, a greatshining white ball like a gigantic head of thistledown, that drove beforethe wind athwart the path. These balls soared high in the air, and droppedand rose again and caught for a moment, and hurried on and passed, but atthe sight of them the restlessness of the horses increased.
Then presently he saw that more of these drifting globes--and then soonvery many more--were hurrying towards him down the valley.
They became aware of a squealing. Athwart the path a huge boar rushed,turning his head but for one instant to glance at them, and then hurlingon down the valley again. And at that all three stopped and sat in theirsaddles, staring into the thickening haze that was coming upon them.
"If it were not for this thistle-down--" began the leader.
But now a big globe came drifting past within a score of yards of them. Itwas really not an even sphere at all, but a vast, soft, ragged, filmything, a sheet gathered by the corners, an aerial jelly-fish, as it were,but rolling over and over as it advanced, and trailing long cobwebbythreads and streamers that floated in its wake.
"It isn't thistle-down," said the little man.
"I don't like the stuff," said the gaunt man.
And they looked at one another.
"Curse it!" cried the leader. "The air's full of lit up there. If it keepson at this pace long, it will stop us altogether."
An instinctive feeling, such as lines out a herd of deer at the approachof some ambiguous thing, prompted them to turn their horses to the wind,ride forward for a few paces, and stare at that advancing multitude offloating masses. They came on before the wind with a sort of smoothswiftness, rising and falling noiselessly, sinking to earth, reboundinghigh, soaring--all with a perfect unanimity, with a still, deliberateassurance.
Right and left of the horsemen the pioneers of this strange army passed.At one that rolled along the ground, breaking shapelessly and trailing outreluctantly into long grappling ribbons and bands, all three horses beganto shy and dance. The master was seized with a sudden, unreasonableimpatience. He cursed the drifting globes roundly. "Get on!" he cried;"get on! What do these things matter? How _can_ they matter? Back tothe trail!" He fell swearing at his horse and sawed the bit across itsmouth.
He shouted aloud with rage. "I will follow that trail, I tell you," hecried. "Where is the trail?"
He gripped the bridle of his prancing horse and searched amidst the grass.A long and clinging thread fell across his face, a grey streamer droppedabout his bridle arm, some big, active thing with many legs ran down theback of his head. He looked up to discover one of those grey massesanchored as it were above him by these things and flapping out ends as asail flaps when a boat comes about--but noiselessly.
He had an impression of many eyes, of a dense crew of squat bodies, oflong, many-jointed limbs hauling at their mooring ropes to bring the thingdown upon him. For a space he stared up, reining in his prancing horsewith the instinct born of years of horsemanship. Then the flat of a swordsmote his back, and a blade flashed overhead and cut the drifting balloonof spider-web free, and the whole mass lifted softly and drove clear andaway.
"Spiders!" cried the voice of the gaunt man. "The things are full of bigspiders! Look, my lord!"
The man with the silver bridle still followed the mass that drove away.
"Look, my lord!"
The master found himself staring down at a red smashed thing on the groundthat, in spite of partial obliteration, could still wriggle unavailinglegs. Then, when the gaunt man pointed to another mass that bore down uponthem, he drew his sword hastily. Up the valley now it was like a fog banktorn to rags. He tried to grasp the situation.
"Ride for it!" the little man was shouting. "Ride for it down the valley."
What happened then was like the confusion of a battle. The man with thesilver bridle saw the little man go past him, slashing furiously atimaginary cobwebs, saw him cannon into the horse of the gaunt man and hurlit and its rider to earth. His own horse went a dozen paces before hecould rein it in. Then he looked up to avoid imaginary dangers, and thenback again to see a horse rolling on the ground, the gaunt man standingand slashing over it at a rent and fluttering mass of grey that streamedand wrapped about them both. And thick and fast as thistle-down on wasteland on a windy day in July the cobweb masses were coming on.
The little man had dismounted, but he dared not release his horse. He wasendeavouring to lug the struggling brute back with the strength of onearm, while with the other he slashed aimlessly. The tentacles of a secondgrey mass had entangled themselves with the struggle, and this second greymass came to its moorings, and slowly sank.
The master set his teeth, gripped his bridle, lowered his head, andspurred his horse forward. The horse on the ground rolled over, there wasblood and moving shapes upon the flanks, and the gaunt man suddenlyleaving it, ran forward towards his master, perhaps ten paces. His legswere swathed and encumbered with grey; he made ineffectual movements withhis sword. Grey streamers waved from him; there was a thin veil of greyacross his face. With his left hand he beat at something on his body, andsuddenly he stumbled and fell. He struggled to rise, and fell again, andsuddenly, horribly, began to howl, "Oh--ohoo, ohooh!"
The master could see the great spiders upon him, and others upon theground.
As he strove to force his horse nearer to this gesticulating, screaminggrey object that struggled up and down, there came a clatter of hoofs, andthe little man, in act of mounting, swordless, balanced on his bellyathwart the white horse, and clutching its mane, whirled past. And again aclinging thread of grey gossamer swept across the master's face. All abouthim, and over him, it seemed this drifting, noiseless cobweb circled anddrew nearer him...
To the day of his death he never knew just how the event of that momenthappened. Did he, indeed, turn his horse, or did it really of its ownaccord stampede after its fellow? Suffice it that in another second he wasgalloping full tilt down the valley with his sword whirling furiouslyoverhead. And all about him on the quickening breeze, the spiders'air-ships, their air bundles and air sheets, seemed to him to hurry in aconscious pursuit.
Clatter, clatter, thud, thud,--the man with the silver bridle rode,heedless of his direction, with his fearful face looking up now right, nowleft, and his sword arm ready to slash. And a few hundred yards ahead ofhim, with a tail of torn cobweb trailing behind him, rode the little manon the white horse, still but imperfectly in the saddle. The reeds bentbefore them, the wind blew fresh and strong, over his shoulder the mastercould see the webs hurrying to overtake...
He was so intent to escape the spiders' webs that only as his horsegathered together for a leap did he realise the ravine ahead. And then herealised it only to misunderstand and interfere. He was leaning forward onhis horse's neck and sat up and back all too late.
But if in his excitement he had failed to leap, at any rate he had notforgotten how to fall. He was horseman again in mid-air. He came off clearwith a mere bruise upon his shoulder, and his horse rolled, kickingspasmodic legs, and lay still. But the master's sword drove its point intothe hard soil, and snapped clean across, as t
hough Chance refused him anylonger as her Knight, and the splintered end missed his face by an inch orso.
He was on his feet in a moment, breathlessly scanning the on-rushingspider-webs. For a moment he was minded to run, and then thought of theravine, and turned back. He ran aside once to dodge one drifting terror,and then he was swiftly clambering down the precipitous sides, and out ofthe touch of the gale.
There, under the lee of the dry torrent's steeper banks, he might crouchand watch these strange, grey masses pass and pass in safety till the windfell, and it became possible to escape. And there for a long time hecrouched, watching the strange, grey, ragged masses trail their streamersacross his narrowed sky.
Once a stray spider fell into the ravine close beside him--a full foot itmeasured from leg to leg and its body was half a man's hand--and after hehad watched its monstrous alacrity of search and escape for a little whileand tempted it to bite his broken sword, he lifted up his iron-heeled bootand smashed it into a pulp. He swore as he did so, and for a time soughtup and down for another.
Then presently, when he was surer these spider swarms could not drop intothe ravine, he found a place where he could sit down, and sat and fellinto deep thought and began, after his manner, to gnaw his knuckles andbite his nails. And from this he was moved by the coming of the man withthe white horse.
He heard him long before he saw him, as a clattering of hoofs, stumblingfootsteps, and a reassuring voice. Then the little man appeared, a ruefulfigure, still with a tail of white cobweb trailing behind him. Theyapproached each other without speaking, without a salutation. The littleman was fatigued and shamed to the pitch of hopeless bitterness, and cameto a stop at last, face to face with his seated master. The latter winceda little under his dependent's eye. "Well?" he said at last, with nopretence of authority.
"You left him?"
"My horse bolted."
"I know. So did mine."
He laughed at his master mirthlessly.
"I say my horse bolted," said the man who once had a silver-studdedbridle.
"Cowards both," said the little man.
The other gnawed his knuckle through some meditative moments, with his eyeon his inferior.
"Don't call me a coward," he said at length.
"You are a coward, like myself."
"A coward possibly. There is a limit beyond which every man must fear.That I have learnt at last. But not like yourself. That is where thedifference comes in."
"I never could have dreamt you would have left him. He saved your life twominutes before... Why are you our lord?"
The master gnawed his knuckles again, and his countenance was dark.
"No man calls me a coward," he said. "No ... A broken sword is betterthan none ... One spavined white horse cannot be expected to carry twomen a four days' journey. I hate white horses, but this time it cannot behelped. You begin to understand me? I perceive that you are minded, on thestrength of what you have seen and fancy, to taint my reputation. It ismen of your sort who unmake kings. Besides which--I never liked you."
"My lord!" said the little man.
"No," said the master. "_No!_"
He stood up sharply as the little man moved. For a minute perhaps theyfaced one another. Overhead the spiders' balls went driving. There was aquick movement among the pebbles; a running of feet, a cry of despair, agasp and a blow...
Towards nightfall the wind fell. The sun set in a calm serenity, and theman who had once possessed the silver bridle came at last very cautiouslyand by an easy slope out of the ravine again; but now he led the whitehorse that once belonged to the little man. He would have gone back to hishorse to get his silver-mounted bridle again, but he feared night and aquickening breeze might still find him in the valley, and besides, hedisliked greatly to think he might discover his horse all swathed incobwebs and perhaps unpleasantly eaten.
And as he thought of those cobwebs, and of all the dangers he had beenthrough, and the manner in which he had been preserved that day, his handsought a little reliquary that hung about his neck, and he clasped it fora moment with heartfelt gratitude. As he did so his eyes went across thevalley.
"I was hot with passion," he said, "and now she has met her reward. Theyalso, no doubt--"
And behold! far away out of the wooded slopes across the valley, but inthe clearness of the sunset, distinct and unmistakable, he saw a littlespire of smoke.
At that his expression of serene resignation changed to an amazed anger.Smoke? He turned the head of the white horse about, and hesitated. And ashe did so a little rustle of air went through the grass about him. Faraway upon some reeds swayed a tattered sheet of grey. He looked at thecobwebs; he looked at the smoke.
"Perhaps, after all, it is not them," he said at last.
But he knew better.
After he had stared at the smoke for some time, he mounted the whitehorse.
As he rode, he picked his way amidst stranded masses of web. For somereason there were many dead spiders on the ground, and those that livedfeasted guiltily on their fellows. At the sound of his horse's hoofs theyfled.
Their time had passed. From the ground, without either a wind to carrythem or a winding-sheet ready, these things, for all their poison, coulddo him little evil.
He flicked with his belt at those he fancied came too near. Once, where anumber ran together over a bare place, he was minded to dismount andtrample them with his boots, but this impulse he overcame. Ever and againhe turned in his saddle, and looked back at the smoke.
"Spiders," he muttered over and over again. "Spiders. Well, well... Thenext time I must spin a web."