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"Yet Lindela is a sprig of a mighty tree. And I think, Nyonyoba, you yourself are sprung from such a root." "That is no lie, Ruler of the Wise. As a man's whole height is to the length of half his leg, so is the length of my house to that of the kings of the Ba-gcatya, or even to that of Senzangakona himself." "Ha! That may well be. Thou hast a look that way."
One of the latter, thrown at close quarters, hurling over the heads of his guards, struck him on the shoulder, painfully and hard. He looked up. It had been hurled by the hand of Lindela; and as he met her eyes full, the face which he had last looked upon softening and glowing with the wondrous light of love, was now wreathed into a horrible grin of hate and savagery. "Yau! The Spider is hungry!
Yet the same pain did not grip around his heart now not in its former acuteness rather was it now a sense of the falling away of all things. By a freak of psychology his mind reverted to poor Lindela, dying in his arms in the steamy gloom of the equatorial forest: dying slowly, by inches, in pain; yet uttering no cry, no complaint, lest she should rob him of a few minutes more or less of sleep.
As he seized these, he realized that he would have given half his diamonds, up till then well-nigh forgotten, for just such an armoury. Now he felt equal to anything, to anybody. He was once more the dominant animal, an armed man nay, more a well-armed man. "Ha! now you are once more as you ought to be," cried Lindela, gleefully clapping her hands together.
And then, as the gray, pearly lights of evening, merging into the sombre shades of twilight, drew a deepening veil over this scene of fair and wondrous beauty, once more the words of Lindela, in all their unhesitating reassurance, seemed to sound in this man's ears, rekindling the fire of hope within his soul, perchance rekindling fire of a different nature.
"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."
Now, in her unfeigned glee over the prospect of a new specimen, Lindela looked extremely attractive; and noting it, an unconscious softness had crept into the man's tone. Even the girls behind noticed it, and whispered to each other, sniggering: "Hau! Isityeli! Quite a wooer! Nyonyoba is hoeing up new land." "Withdraw a little from these, Lindela," he said in a lowered tone; "I would talk."
Then he turned to follow Lindela. The latter had already loaded herself with the bundle of wraps and provisions. To his suggestion that they should, at any rate, halve the load, Lindela laughed in scorn. "A man's work is to carry his weapons, and, when needed, use them," she answered.
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?
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?
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