“Behind those eyes, I sensed a personality, keenly intelligent. I found myself waiting for the frightful thing to speak and was horrified at the thought. You cannot credit, I know, but I who saw am telling you the truth. I believed then, that fearful spider was as intelligent as you or I, in a more limited way, and I can assure you it is an absolute fact that the other hideous vermin acknowledged it as their superior!

“It stood at least a foot and a half high, and I should judge that it would have tipped the scales at about twenty pounds. It walked about the fire at a safe distance, and carefully observed us twice from all angles. Then it moved off in a westerly direction and we saw the others draw back from in front of it respectfully, leaving a broad path, down which it passed, and they closed in solidly again.

“The same actions took place as on the preceding morning. Scatteringly they vanished with the dawn, leaving a few stragglers that seemed to regret the necessity that drove them off.

“There was no question now about what we should do. Rather than spend another such night, we would have braved a thousand savages. About 10 o’clock in the forenoon therefore we started back, but we had gone too far. Before we had gone a mile on our back-trail, we heard rustling in the bushes and crepitant pattering as of many raindrops, while sometimes we could see small gray bodies bounding along beside us.

“Still, we pressed on. The march became a trot, and the trot a wild disorderly rout. We flung away our packs, our weapons, and our clothes in a mad dash for anywhere, but away! We mounted a small knoll and looked back. A sea of gray, black, and red lapped around us, like an island almost level with the water, over which the waves threaten momentarily to break. Slowly from all sides they crept in, rising higher like the chill waters of death. We broke clubs from the trees and prepared to die.

“Then came that horror of the night, hustling on from the west, with five companions that matched it in size. The resistless torrent that was just lapping over the crest of the knoll stopped and receded. The six came closer, scrutinized us and started back down the bank, pausing about ten feet away as though we were expected to follow.

“We did! We all had the same thought at once, to kill the most hideous ones and then as many more as we could before we died. So, we ran down the slope, and the man in front of me crashed his club through the largest of the six.

“Instantly we were covered from head to foot with crawling insects, and as we rolled over and over, shrieking and howling with fear, feeling the spiders pop and squelch beneath our weight like ripe plums, an acrid nauseous stench arose.