The Web of the Golden Spider

“Wha’ th’ hell does this mean?”

Stubbs with a paper in his hand checked off the contents of each boat as it arrived, strode into the heart of every group as it got too noisy, turned aside all questions with an oath or a laugh, and in ten minutes had convinced every man that for the present they were under the whip hand of a master. They quieted down after this and, slouching into the sand, lighted their pipes and waited. Wilson was stationed to overlook the empty boats and see that no one but the oarsmen departed in them.

He took his post with a nonchalance that surprised himself. It was as though he had been accustomed to such incidents all his life. When one of the bullies swaggered down and said with an oath that he’d be damned if he’d have any more of it and lifted one foot into a boat, Wilson touched him lightly upon the shoulder and ordered him back.

The man turned and squared his shoulders for a blow. But the hand upon his shoulder remained, and even in the dusk he saw that the eyes continued unflinchingly upon him.

“Get back,” said Wilson, quietly.

The man turned, and without a word slunk to his place among his fellows. Wilson watched him as curiously as though he had been merely a bystander. And yet when he realized that the man had done his bidding, had done it because he feared to do otherwise, he felt a tingling sense of some new power. It was a feeling of physical individuality–a consciousness of manhood in the arms and legs and back. To him man had until now been purely a creature of the intellect gauged by his brain capacity. Here where the arm counted he found himself taking possession of some fresh nature within him.

“Take the lantern,” shouted Stubbs; “go to where we sat and wave it three times, slow like, back and forth.”

Wilson obeyed. Almost instantly he saw a launch steal from the ship’s side and make directly for the island.

“Now, men,” commanded Stubbs, “take your kits, get into fours and march to the left.”

With a shove here, a warning there, he moulded the scattered groups into a fairly orderly line. Then he directed them by twos into the small boat from the launch, which had come as far inshore as possible. Wilson stood opposite and kept the line intact. There was no trouble. The launch made two trips, and on the last Stubbs and Wilson clambered in, leaving the island as deserted as the ocean in their wake. Stubbs wiped his forehead with a red bandanna handkerchief and lighted up his short clay pipe with a sigh of relief.

“So far, so good,” he said. “The only thing you can bank on is what’s over with. There’s several of them gents I should hate to meet on a dark night, an’ the same will bear steady watchin’ on this trip.”

He squatted in the stern, calmly facing the clouded faces with the air of a laborer who has completed a good day’s work. As they came alongside the ship he instructed each man how to mount the swaying rope ladder and watched them solicitously until they clambered over the side.

Most of them took this as an added insult and swore roundly at it as an imposition.

Wilson himself found it no easy task to reach the deck, but Stubbs came up the ladder as nimbly as a cat. The ship was unlighted from bow to stern, so that the men aboard her moved about like shadows. Wilson was rescued from the hold by Stubbs, who drew him back just as he was being shoved towards the hatch by one of the sailors. The next second he found himself facing a well-built shadow, who greeted Stubbs with marked satisfaction.

“By the Lord,” exclaimed the man, “you’ve done well, Stubbs. How many did you get in all?”

“Fifty–to a man.”

“They looked husky in the dark.”

“Yes, they’ve gut beef ’nuff–but that ain’t all that makes a man. Howsomever, they’re as good as I expected.”

Wilson gasped; the master of this strange craft was no other than Danbury!

CHAPTER XII

Of Love and Queens

For a few minutes Wilson kept in the background. He saw that the young man was in command and apparently knew what he was about, for one order followed another, succeeded by a quick movement of silent figures about the decks, a jingle of bells below, and soon the metallic clank of the steam-driven windlass. Shortly after this he felt the pulse beat of the engines below, and then saw the ship, as gently as a maid picking her way across a muddy street, move slowly ahead into the dark.

“Now,” said Danbury to Stubbs, “hold your breath. If we can only slide by the lynx-eyed quarantine officers, we’ll have a straight road ahead of us for a while.”

“Maybe we’ll do it; maybe we won’t.”

“You damned pessimist,” laughed Danbury. “Once we’re out of this harbor I’ll give you a feed that will make an optimist of you.”

The black smoke, sprinkled with golden red sparks from the forced draft, belched from the funnel tops. The ship slid by the green and red lights of other craft with never a light of her own. The three men stood there until the last beacon was passed and the boat was pointed for the open.

“Done!” exclaimed Danbury. “Now we’ll have our lights and sail like men. Hanged if I like that trick of muffled lights; but it would be too long a delay to be held up here until morning.”

He spoke a moment to his mate, and then turned to Stubbs.

“Now,” he said, “come on and I’ll make you glad you’re living.”

“Just a moment, Cap’n–my mate Wilson.”

Danbury turned sharply. In the light which now flooded up from below, he saw Wilson’s features quite clearly, but for a moment he could not believe his eyes.

“What the devil–” he began, then broke in abruptly, “Are you the same one–the fellow in the Oriental robe and bandaged head?”

“The same,” answered Wilson.

“The one I took from the crowd and brought home?”

“And clothed and loaned ten dollars, for which he is more thankful than ever.”

“But–did you get the girl?”

“Not yet,” answered Wilson. “I’m still after her.”

“Well,–but say, come on down.”

Danbury led the way into a small cabin so brilliant with the reflection of the electric lights against the spotless white woodwork that it was almost blinding. But it was a welcome change from the dark and the cool night air and the discomfort of the last few hours. To Wilson it was almost like a feat of magic to have been shifted in an hour from the barren sands of the tiny island to such luxury as this. It took but the first glance to perceive that this young captain had not been limited in resources in the furnishing of his ship. Within the small compass of a stateroom he had compressed comfort and luxury. Yet there was no ostentation or vulgarity displayed. The owner had been guided by the one desire for decent ease and a certain regard for the eye. The left side of the room was occupied by the two bunks made up with the immaculate neatness characterizing all things aboard a good ship. The center of the room, was now filled with a folding table set with an array of silver, fine linen, and exquisite glass which would have done credit to the best board in New York. Beneath the group of electric lights it fairly sparkled and glistened as though it were ablaze. The wall to the right was adorned with a steel engraving of a thoroughbred bull pup.

“Now,” said Danbury, throwing himself into a chair, “I’d like to know how in thunder Stubbs got you.”

“He didn’t–I got Stubbs.”

“But where–”

“On the pier,” broke in Stubbs, “where I had gone with the note to your pal–an’ may I drop dead if he don’t give me the creeps. There I finds this gent–an’ I takes ’em where I finds ’em.”

“You got the note to Valverde all right?”

“I got the note to your long-legged friend, but–it’s his eyes, man! It’s his eyes! They ain’t human! I seen a man like him once what went mad from the heat an’–” he lowered his voice, “they found him at his mate’s throat a-sucking of his blood!”

“Don’t!” exploded Danbury. “No more of your ghastly yarns! Val is going to be useful to me or–I’m darned if I could stand him. I don’t like him after dark.”

“They shines in the dark like a cat’s–them eyes does.”

“Drop it, Stubbs! Drop it! I want to forget him for a while. That isn’t telling me how you chanced–”

“That’s just it,” interrupted Wilson. “It was chance. I was looking for an opportunity to get to Carlina, and by inspiration was led to ask Stubbs. He made the proposition that I come with him, and I came. I had no more idea of seeing you than my great-grandfather. I was going back to thank you, but one thing has followed another so swiftly that I hadn’t the time.”

“I know, I know. But if you really want to thank me, you must tell me all about it some day. If things hadn’t been coming so fast my own way I should have lain awake nights guessing about you. If I could have picked out one man I wanted on this trip with me I’d have taken a chance on you. The way you stood off that crowd made a hit with me. I don’t know what sort of a deal you’ve made with Stubbs, but I’ll make one of my own with you after dinner. Now about the others. No shanghaiing, was there, Stubbs? Every man knows where he’s going and what he’s hired for?”

“They will afore they’re through.”

Danbury’s face darkened.

“I’m afraid you’ve been overzealous. I won’t have a man on board against his will, if I have to sail back to port with him. But once he’s decided for himself,–I’ll be damned if he turns yellow safely.”

“Ye’ve gotter remember,” said Stubbs, “that they’re a pack er liars, every mother’s son of ’em. Maybe they’ll say they was shanghaied; maybe they won’t. But I’ve got fifty papers to show they’re liars ’cause they’ve put their names to th’ bottom of every paper.”

“And they were sober when they did it?”

“I ain’t been lookin’ arter their morals or their personal habits,” replied Stubbs, with some disgust. “As fer their turnin’ yeller–mos’ men are yeller until they are afraid not ter be.”

“I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it,–not Americans. And that’s one thing I insisted upon,–they are all Americans?”

“Every mother’s son of ’em swore they was. Not bein’ present at their birth–”

“Well, we’ll look ’em over to-morrow and I’ll have a talk with them. I’m going to put it up to them squarely–good pay for good fighters. By the Lord, Stubbs, I can’t realize yet that we’re actually on the way. Think of it,–in less than a month we’ll be at it!”

The dinner would have done credit to the Waldorf.

It was towards its end that Togo, the Japanese steward, came in with a silver-topped bottle in a pail of ice. He filled the three glasses with the flourish of a man who has put a period to the end of a successful composition. Danbury arose. “Gentlemen,” he said, raising his glass, “I have a toast to propose: to Her health and Her throne.”

The two men rose, Wilson mystified, and silently drained their glasses. Then there was the tinkle of shivered glass as Danbury, after the manner of the English in drinking to their Queen, hurled the fragile crystal to the floor. Shortly after this Stubbs left the two men to go below and look after his charges. Danbury brought out a bottle of Scotch and a siphon of soda and, lighting his brierwood pipe, settled back comfortably on the bunk with his head bolstered up with pillows.

“Now,” he said, “I’d like to know just as much of your story as you want to tell–just as much as you feel like telling, and not another word. Maybe you’re equally curious about me; if so, I’ll tell you something of that afterwards. There’s pipes, cigars, and cigarettes–take your choice.”

Wilson felt that he was under certain obligations to tell something of himself, but in addition to this he really felt a desire to confide in someone. It would be a relief. The fact remained, however, that as yet he really knew nothing of Danbury and so must move cautiously. He told him of the incident in his life which led to his leaving school, of his failure to find work in Boston, of his adventure in helping the girl to escape, which led to the house. Here he confined himself to the arrival of the owner, of his wound, and of the attack made upon him in the house. He told of his search through the dark house, of the closed cellar door, and of the blow in the head.

“Someone bundled me into a carriage, and I came to on the way to the hospital. It was the next day, after I awoke in my cot and persuaded them to let me out, that I had the good luck to run into you. My clothes had been left in the house and all I had was the lounging robe which I had put on early in the evening.”

“But you had your nerve to dare venture out in that rig!”

“I had to get back to the house. The girl didn’t know where I had gone, and, for all I knew, was at the mercy of the same madman who struck me.”

“That’s right–you had to do it. But honestly, I would rather have met twenty more maniacs in the dark than go out upon the street in that Jap juggler costume of yours. What happened after you left me?”

Wilson told of the empty house, of finding the note, of locating the other house, and finally of the letter and his race for the wharf.

“And then I ran into Stubbs and landed here,” he concluded.

“What did Stubbs tell you of this expedition?”

“Nothing–except that we are running to Carlina.”

“Yes,” sighed Danbury, dreamily, “to Carlina. Well, things certainly have been coming fast for you these last few days. And I’ll tell you right now that when we reach Carlina if you need me or any of this crew to help you get the girl, you can count on us. We’ve got a pretty good job of our own cut out, but perhaps the two will work together.”

He relighted his pipe, adjusted thyhe pillows more comfortably, and with hands clasped behind his head began his own story.

“To go back a little,” he said, “father made a pot of money in coffee–owned two or three big plantations down around Rio; but he had no sooner got a comfortable pile together than he died. That’s way back just about as far as I can remember. As a kid I wasn’t very strong, and so cut out school mostly–got together a few scraps of learning under a tutor, but never went to college. Instead of that, the mater let me knock around. She’s the best ever that way, is the mater–tends to her Bridge, gives me an open account, and, so long as she hears once a month, is happy.

“Last year I took a little trip down to Dad’s plantations, and from there rounded the Horn on a sailing vessel and landed way up the west coast in Carlina. It was just chance that led me to get off there and push in to Bogova. I’d heard of gold mines in there and thought I’d have a look at them. But before I came to the gold mines I found something else.”

He paused a moment. Then, without a word, rose slowly and, fumbling about a moment in a cedar chest near his bunk, drew out a photograph.

“That’s she,” he said laconically.

Wilson saw the features of a girl of twenty, a good profile of rather a Southern cast, and a certain poise of the head which marked her as one with generations of equally good features back of her.

If not decidedly beautiful, she was most attractive, giving an impression of an independent nature enlivened with humor. It seemed to Wilson that she might furnish a very good balance to Danbury.

“You lose the best part of her,” said Danbury, reseating himself on the bunk. “You can’t see the eyes and–”

Danbury roused himself and sat on the edge of the bunk leaning far forward, elbows on knees, gazing steadily at Wilson.

“Say, those eyes do keep a fellow up, don’t they? I had only to see them once to know that I’d fight for them as long as I lived. Queer what a girl’s eyes–the girl’s eyes–will do. I’ll never forget that first time. She was sitting in one of those palm-filled cafés where the sun sprinkles in across the floor. She was dressed in black, not a funeral black, but one of those fluffy things that make crêpe look like royal purple. She had a rose, a long-stemmed rose, in her bodice, and one of those Spanish lace things over her hair. I can see her now,–almost reach out and touch her. I went in and took a table not far away and ordered a drink. Then I watched her out of the corner of my eye. She was with an older woman, and, say–she didn’t see a man in that whole room. As far as they were concerned they might have been so many flies buzzing round among the palms. Then a couple of government officers lounged in and caught sight of her. They all know her down there ’cause she is of the blood royal. Her grandmother’s sister was the last queen and was murdered in cold blood. Yes, sir, and there weren’t men enough there to get up and shoot the bunch who did it. Pretty soon these fellows began to get fresh. She didn’t mind them, but after standing it as long as she decently could, she rose and prepared to go out.

“Go out, with an American in the place? Not much! There was a row, and at the end of it they carried the two officers off on a stretcher. Then they pinched me and it cost me $500 to get out.

“But it gave me the chance to meet her later on and learn all about how she had been cheated out of her throne. You see the trouble was that republics had been started all around Carlina,–they grow down there like mushrooms,–so that soon some of these chumps thought they must go and do the same thing, although everything was going finely and they were twice as prosperous under their queen as the other fellows were under their grafting presidents. Then one of the wild-eyed ones stabbed Queen Marguerite, her grandaunt, you know, and the game was on. Isn’t it enough to make your blood boil? As a matter of fact, the whole blamed shooting-match wouldn’t make a state the size of Rhode Island, so it isn’t worth much trouble except for the honor of the thing. There is a bunch of men down there who have kept the old traditions alive by going out into the streets and shooting up the city hall every now and then, but they’ve mostly got shot themselves for their pains,–which hasn’t done the princess any good. I studied the situation, and the more I thought of her getting done in this way, the madder I got. So I made up my mind she should have her old throne back. She said she didn’t want it, but that was only because she didn’t want me to get mixed up in it. At first it did look like a kind of dubious enterprise, but I prowled around and then I discovered a trump card. Up in the hills there is a bunch of wild Indians who have always balked at a republic, mostly because the republic tried to clean them out just to keep the army in practice.

“But the Chief, the Grand Mogul and priest of them all, is this same man Stubbs doesn’t like–the same who, for some devilish reason of his own chose this particular time to sail for South America. But he isn’t a bad lot, this Valverde, though he is a queer one. He speaks English like a native and has ways that at times make me think he is half American. But he isn’t–he is a heathen clear to his backbone, with a heathen heart and a heathen temper. When he takes a dislike to a man he’s going to make it hot for him some day or other. It seems that he is particularly sore against the government now because of a certain expedition sent up there a little over a year ago, and because of the loss of a heathen idol which–”

“What?” broke in Wilson, half rising from his chair. “Is this–”

“The priest, they all call him. Mention the priest down there and they knew whom you mean.”

“Go on,” said Wilson, breathing a bit more rapidly.

“Do you know him? Maybe you caught a glimpse of him that day you were at the house. He was there.”

“No, I don’t know him,” answered Wilson, “but–but I have heard of him. It seems that he is everywhere.”

“He is a queer one. He can get from one place to another more quickly and with less noise than anyone I ever met. He’s a bit uncanny that way as well as other ways. However, as I said, he’s been square with me and it didn’t take us long to get together on a proposition for combining our interests; I to furnish guns, ammunition, and as many men as possible, he to fix up a deal with the old party, do the scheming, and furnish a few hundred Indians. I’ve had the boat all ready for a long while, and Stubbs, one of Dad’s old skippers, out for men. Yesterday he jumped at me from Carlina, where I thought he was, 10,000 miles away by sea, and gave the word. Now he is off again on the Columba and is to meet me in Choco Bay.”

Danbury relighted his pipe and added between puffs over the match:

“Now you know the whole story and where we’re going. Are you with us?”

“Yes,” answered Wilson, “I am with you.”

But his head was whirling. Who was this man who struck at him in the dark, and with whom he was now joined in an expedition against Carlina? One thing was sure; that if the priest was on the boat with Sorez it boded ill for the latter. It was possible the girl might never reach Carlina.

“Now for terms. I’ll give you twenty a week and your keep to fight this out with me. Is it a bargain?”

“Yes,” answered Wilson.

“Shake on it.”

Wilson shook. Danbury rang for the steward.

“Togo–a bottle. We must drink to her health.”

CHAPTER XIII

Of Powder and Bullets

Day after day of the long voyage passed without incident. Danbury and Wilson in the close relationship necessary aboard ship grew to be warm friends. And yet the latter still remained silent concerning that part of his quest relating to the hidden treasure. This was not so much due to any remaining suspicion of Danbury as to the fact that the latter seemed so occupied with his own interests. In fact, he was tempted far more to confide in Stubbs. The latter would be an ideal partner on such a search. As the days passed he became more and more convinced that it would be to his advantage to enlist the services of Stubbs even upon as big a basis as share and share alike.

Danbury trod the decks each day with a light step, and at night relieved his buoyant heart of its dreams to Wilson and of its plans to Stubbs. The latter had spoken once or twice of the necessity of finding something for the men below to do, but Danbury had waved aside the suggestion with a good-natured “Let ’em loaf.” But finally their grumblings and complainings grew so loud that Stubbs was forced to take some notice of it, and so, upon his own responsibility, had them up on deck where he put them through a form of drill. But they rebelled at this and at last reached a condition which threatened to become serious.

“We’ve jus’ got to find something for them to do,” Stubbs informed him.

“They ought certainly to be kept in trim. Don’t want them to get flabby.”

“’Nother thing, they are livin’ too high,” said Stubbs. “Salt pork and hardtack is what they needs,–not beefsteak.”

“Nonsense, Stubbs. This isn’t a slave-ship. Nothing like good fodder to keep ’em in trim. They are getting just what you get at a training table, and I know what that does,–keeps you fit as a king.”

“Mebbe so. I’ll tell you what it’ull do for them,–it’ll inspire ’em to cut our bonny throats some day. The ale alone ’ud do it. Think of servin’ ale to sech as them with nothin’ to do but sit in the sun. Darned if they ain’t gettin’ to look as chubby as them babies you see in the advertisements. An’ their tempers is growin’ likewise.”

“Good fightin’ spirit, eh?”

“Yes,” drawled Stubbs, “an’ a hell of a bad thing to have on the high seas.”

“Well,” said Danbury, after a moment’s thought, “you have them up on deck to-morrow and I’ll have a talk with them.”

It was Danbury’s first opportunity to look over his mercenaries as a whole and he gave a gasp of surprise at the row after row of villainous faces raised with sneering grins to his. Well in the front squatted “Bum” Jocelin, known to the water-front police for fifteen years,–six feet of threatening insolence; “Black” Morrison with two penitentiary sentences back of him; and “Splinter” Mallory, thin, leering, shifty. And yet Danbury, after he had recovered himself a bit, saw in their very ugliness the fighting spirit of the bulldog. He had not hired them for ornament but for the very lawlessness which led them rather to fight for what they wished than to work for it. Doubtless below their flannel shirts they all had hearts which beat warmly. So he met their gaze frankly and, raising one foot to a capstan, he bent forward with a smile and began. Stubbs stood by with the strained expression of a father who stands helpless watching a son do a foolish thing. On the other hand, Wilson, though he would not have done it himself, rather admired the spirit that prompted the act.