Lair of the White Worm

It was thus that the negro became aware of Lady Arabella's venture into
the house, as she thought, unseen.  He took more care than ever, since he
was watching another, that the positions were not reversed.  More than
ever he kept his eyes and ears open and his mouth shut.  Seeing Lady
Arabella gliding up the stairs towards his master's room, he took it for
granted that she was there for no good, and doubled his watching
intentness and caution.

Oolanga was disappointed, but he dared not exhibit any feeling lest it
should betray that he was hiding.  Therefore he slunk downstairs again
noiselessly, and waited for a more favourable opportunity of furthering
his plans.  It must be borne in mind that he thought that the heavy trunk
was full of valuables, and that he believed that Lady Arabella had come
to try to steal it.  His purpose of using for his own advantage the
combination of these two ideas was seen later in the day.  Oolanga
secretly followed her home.  He was an expert at this game, and succeeded
admirably on this occasion.  He watched her enter the private gate of
Diana's Grove, and then, taking a roundabout course and keeping out of
her sight, he at last overtook her in a thick part of the Grove where no
one could see the meeting.

Lady Arabella was much surprised.  She had not seen the negro for several
days, and had almost forgotten his existence.  Oolanga would have been
startled had he known and been capable of understanding the real value
placed on him, his beauty, his worthiness, by other persons, and compared
it with the value in these matters in which he held himself.  Doubtless
Oolanga had his dreams like other men.  In such cases he saw himself as a
young sun-god, as beautiful as the eye of dusky or even white womanhood
had ever dwelt upon.  He would have been filled with all noble and
captivating qualities--or those regarded as such in West Africa.  Women
would have loved him, and would have told him so in the overt and fervid
manner usual in affairs of the heart in the shadowy depths of the forest
of the Gold Coast.

Oolanga came close behind Lady Arabella, and in a hushed voice, suitable
to the importance of his task, and in deference to the respect he had for
her and the place, began to unfold the story of his love.  Lady Arabella
was not usually a humorous person, but no man or woman of the white race
could have checked the laughter which rose spontaneously to her lips.  The
circumstances were too grotesque, the contrast too violent, for subdued
mirth.  The man a debased specimen of one of the most primitive races of
the earth, and of an ugliness which was simply devilish; the woman of
high degree, beautiful, accomplished.  She thought that her first
moment's consideration of the outrage--it was nothing less in her
eyes--had given her the full material for thought.  But every instant
after threw new and varied lights on the affront.  Her indignation was
too great for passion; only irony or satire would meet the situation.  Her
cold, cruel nature helped, and she did not shrink to subject this
ignorant savage to the merciless fire-lash of her scorn.

Oolanga was dimly conscious that he was being flouted; but his anger was
no less keen because of the measure of his ignorance.  So he gave way to
it, as does a tortured beast.  He ground his great teeth together, raved,
stamped, and swore in barbarous tongues and with barbarous imagery.  Even
Lady Arabella felt that it was well she was within reach of help, or he
might have offered her brutal violence--even have killed her.

"Am I to understand," she said with cold disdain, so much more effective
to wound than hot passion, "that you are offering me your love?
Your--love?"

For reply he nodded his head.  The scorn of her voice, in a sort of
baleful hiss, sounded--and felt--like the lash of a whip.

"And you dared! you--a savage--a slave--the basest thing in the world of
vermin!  Take care!  I don't value your worthless life more than I do
that of a rat or a spider.  Don't let me ever see your hideous face here
again, or I shall rid the earth of you."

As she was speaking, she had taken out her revolver and was pointing it
at him.  In the immediate presence of death his impudence forsook him,
and he made a weak effort to justify himself.  His speech was short,
consisting of single words.  To Lady Arabella it sounded mere gibberish,
but it was in his own dialect, and meant love, marriage, wife.  From the
intonation of the words, she guessed, with her woman's quick intuition,
at their meaning; but she quite failed to follow, when, becoming more
pressing, he continued to urge his suit in a mixture of the grossest
animal passion and ridiculous threats.  He warned her that he knew she
had tried to steal his master's treasure, and that he had caught her in
the act.  But if she would be his, he would share the treasure with her,
and they could live in luxury in the African forests.  But if she
refused, he would tell his master, who would flog and torture her and
then give her to the police, who would kill her.




CHAPTER XIV--BATTLE RENEWED


The consequences of that meeting in the dusk of Diana's Grove were acute
and far-reaching, and not only to the two engaged in it.  From Oolanga,
this might have been expected by anyone who knew the character of the
tropical African savage.  To such, there are two passions that are
inexhaustible and insatiable--vanity and that which they are pleased to
call love.  Oolanga left the Grove with an absorbing hatred in his heart.
His lust and greed were afire, while his vanity had been wounded to the
core.  Lady Arabella's icy nature was not so deeply stirred, though she
was in a seething passion.  More than ever she was set upon bringing