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_ When Thangobrind the jeweller heard the ominous cough, he turned at
once upon that narrow way. A thief was he, of very high repute, being
patronized by the lofty and elect, for he stole nothing smaller than
the Moomoo's egg, and in all his life stole only four kinds of
stone--the ruby, the diamond, the emerald, and the sapphire; and, as
jewellers go, his honesty was great. Now there was a Merchant Prince
who had come to Thangobrind and had offered his daughter's soul for
the diamond that is larger than the human head and was to be found on
the lap of the spider-idol, Hlo-hlo, in his temple of Moung-ga-ling;
for he had heard that Thangobrind was a thief to be trusted.
Thangobrind oiled his body and slipped out of his shop, and went
secretly through byways, and got as far as Snarp, before anybody knew
that he was out on business again or missed his sword from its place
under the counter. Thence he moved only by night, hiding by day and
rubbing the edges of his sword, which he called Mouse because it was
swift and nimble. The jeweller had subtle methods of travelling;
nobody saw him cross the plains of Zid; nobody saw him come to Mursk
or Tlun. O, but he loved shadows! Once the moon peeping out
unexpectedly from a tempest had betrayed an ordinary jeweller; not so
did it undo Thangobrind; the watchman only saw a crouching shape that
snarled and laughed: "'Tis but a hyena," they said. Once in the city
of Ag one of the guardians seized him, but Thangobrind was oiled and
slipped from his hand; you scarcely heard his bare feet patter away.
He knew that the Merchant Prince awaited his return, his little eyes
open all night and glittering with greed; he knew how his daughter lay
chained up and screaming night and day. Ah, Thangobrind knew. And had
he not been out on business he had almost allowed himself one or two
little laughs. But business was business, and the diamond that he
sought still lay on the lap of Hlo-hlo, where it had been for the last
two million years since Hlo-hlo created the world and gave unto it all
things except that precious stone called Dead Man's Diamond. The jewel
was often stolen, but it had a knack of coming back again to the lap
of Hlo-hlo. Thangobrind knew this, but he was no common jeweller and
hoped to outwit Hlo-hlo, perceiving not the trend of ambition and lust
and that they are vanity.
How nimbly he threaded his way thought he pits of Snood!--now like a
botanist, scrutinising the ground; now like a dancer, leaping from
crumbling edges. It was quite dark when he went by the towers of Tor,
where archers shoot ivory arrows at strangers lest any foreigner
should alter their laws, which are bad, but not to be altered by mere
aliens. At night they shoot by the sound of the strangers' feet. O,
Thangobrind, was ever a jeweller like you! He dragged two stones
behind him by long cords, and at these the archers shot. Tempting
indeed was the snare that they set in Woth, the emeralds loose-set in
the city's gate; but Thangobrind discerned the golden cord that
climbed the wall from each and the weights that would topple upon him
if he touched one, and so he left them, though he left them weeping,
and at last came to Theth. There all men worship Hlo-hlo; though they
are willing to believe in other gods, as missionaries attest, but only
as creatures of the chase for the hunting of Hlo-hlo, who wears Their
halos, so these people say, on golden hooks along his hunting-belt.
And from Theth he came to the city of Moung and the temple of
Moung-ga-ling, and entered and saw the spider-idol, Hlo-hlo, sitting
there with Dead Man's Diamond glittering on his lap, and looking for
all the world like a full moon, but a full moon seen by a lunatic who
had slept too long in its rays, for there was in Dead Man's Diamond a
certain sinister look and a boding of things to happen that are better
not mentioned here. The face of the spider-idol was lit by that fatal
gem; there was no other light. In spite of his shocking limbs and that
demoniac body, his face was serene and apparently unconscious.
A little fear came into the mind of Thangobrind the jeweller, a
passing tremor--no more; business was business and he hoped for the
best. Thangobrind offered honey to Hlo-hlo and prostrated himself
before him. Oh, he was cunning! When the priests stole out of the
darkness to lap up the honey they were stretched senseless on the
temple floor, for there was a drug in the honey that was offered to
Hlo-hlo. And Thangobrind the jeweller picked Dead Man's Diamond up and
put it on his shoulder and trudged away from the shrine; and Hlo-hlo
the spider-idol said nothing at all, but he laughed softly as the
jeweller shut the door. When the priests awoke out of the grip of the
drug that was offered with the honey to Hlo-hlo, they rushed to a
little secret room with an outlet on the stars and cast a horoscope of
the thief. Something that they saw in the horoscope seemed to satisfy
the priests.
It was not like Thangobrind to go back by the road by which he had
come. No, he went by another road, even though it led to the narrow
way, night-house and spider-forest.
The city of Moung went towering by behind him, balcony above balcony,
eclipsing half the stars, as he trudged away. Though when a soft
pittering as of velvet feet arose behind him he refused to acknowledge
that it might be what he feared, yet the instincts of his trade told
him that it is not well when any noise whatever follows a diamond by
night, and this was one of the largest that had ever come to him in
the way of business. When he came to the narrow way that leads to
spider-forest, Dead Man's Diamond feeling cold and heavy, and the
velvety footfall seeming fearfully close, the jeweller stopped and
almost hesitated. He looked behind him; there was nothing there. He
listened attentively; there was no sound now. Then he thought of the
screams of the Merchant Prince's daughter, whose soul was the
diamond's price, and smiled and went stoutly on. There watched him,
apathetically, over the narrow way, that grim and dubious woman whose
house is Night. Thangobrind, hearing no longer the sound of suspicious
feet, felt easier now. He was all but come to the end of the narrow
way, when the woman listlessly uttered that ominous cough.
The cough was too full of meaning to be disregarded. Thangobrind
turned round and saw at once what he feared. The spider-idol had not
stayed at home. The jeweller put his diamond gently upon the ground
and drew his sword called Mouse. And then began that famous fight upon
the narrow way in which the grim old woman whose house was Night
seemed to take so little interest. To the spider-idol you saw at once
it was all a horrible joke. To the jeweller it was grim earnest. He
fought and panted and was pushed back slowly along the narrow way, but
he wounded Hlo-hlo all the while with terrible long gashes all over
his deep, soft body till Mouse was slimy with blood. But at last the
persistent laughter of Hlo-hlo was too much for the jeweller's nerves,
and, once more wounding his demoniac foe, he sank aghast and exhausted
by the door of the house called Night at the feet of the grim old
woman, who having uttered once that ominous cough interfered no
further with the course of events. And there carried Thangobrind the
jeweller away those whose duty it was, to the house where the two men
hang, and taking down from his hook the left-hand of the two, they put
that venturous jeweller in his place; so that there fell on him the
doom that he feared, as all men know though it is so long since, and
there abated somewhat the ire of the envious gods.
And the only daughter of the Merchant Prince felt so little gratitude
for this great deliverance that she took to respectability of the
militant kind, and became aggressively dull, and called her home the
English Riviera, and had platitudes worked in worsted upon her
tea-cosy, and in the end never died, but passed away in her residence. _
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