Seizing the rope he began his ascent, the mace and the remainder of his bone daggers still slung around him. The task was more difficult than it looked. Contact, often sudden and violent, with the rock face bruised his knuckles, inflicting excruciating pain, once indeed so as to turn him sick and faint. But a glance down into the grisly hollow, as he hung thus suspended by a thread—the glint of the white skeletons in the moonlight, and, above all, the vague, shadowy outline, black and frightful, of the horror, which still lingered outside its den, as though meditating return—nerved him once more. What if he were to fall, maimed, battered, helpless—would not the frightful thing hold him entirely at its mercy, and return and drain his life-blood at its pleasure? Summoning all his will-power, all his strength, he resumed his climb, and soon a firm, resolute hand, grasping his, drew him up for the time being into safety; for they were on a ledge.
"Rest now, beloved," said the chief's daughter softly, as she turned to draw up the rope. "I have saved thee so far."
"But—to what end, Lindela? Did you not fling a stick at me, and strike me hard? See, I am bruised with it yet. It has even hindered my climbing powers. That is a strange way of showing love."
"But is this a stranger way?" said the girl sadly, displaying the rope she had just drawn up. "See now. They suspected me, as it was. Had I not shown myself the first and the fiercest to turn against you, should I have been here now? But come, we are not yet in safety. When we are it will be time enough for talk, and for—love."
She led the way to a steep, narrow cranny. Up this they climbed some fifty feet without difficulty, emerging upon another terrace. Here another rope hung from the cliff above, about the same height.
"Go first, Nyonyoba, while I hold the rope to steady it," said the girl. "Then, too, if your strength should give way, perhaps I may catch you and break your fall. I am as strong as any of the women of the Ba-gcatya—and that is saying much."
For answer, Laurence uttered a derisive laugh. But there must have been that in its tone which pleased the chief's daughter, for she repeated the request, more softly, more entreatingly.
"See now, Lindela," he answered, placing a hand on each of the shapely shoulders, which glistened light bronze in the moonlight. "You don't know me yet if you think I will leave the post of danger to you. Obey me instantly. Go first up that rope, or I return and do combat once more with the Spider."
"Once more? Have you then—actually fought with that—with that which is down there?" And her eyes were round with amazement.