“Three days later, being fully cured of my wound, I was again brought from the prison. The spiders were waiting. The valley was acrawl with vermin, whose dry rustling filled the air with whispers. Yellow-headed guards surrounded the huts, gray devils mingled with the scarlet-barred insects, huge black leaping tarantulas were present in great numbers, but in all that crowd I saw not a single insect whose bite is not poisonous to man.

“The spider king in his silent communication made it understood to me that my life depended upon my ability to guide them to the nearest community of whites, and I consented readily. Who would not have done the same? I intended to lead them to the river and take my chances of escape there, knowing that they were as careful as cats about entering water, for although the king had promised me my life, I had but little faith in the promise.

“So, on the eighth day of my captivity we set out to the conquering of an unsuspecting continent. I walked in the center of the huge rulers’ formation. About us rustled an imposing troop of guards, and for miles on each side the forest was filled with our myrmidons, scattered far and wide.

“How I feasted on fruit, that day! As we passed the small brook at tambo number 10, I caught some small fish and ate them raw, and no epicure ever tasted anything more delicious than that meal was to me. The drums growled again that night, as I lay in the midst of the lightly sleeping horde that quivered angrily at my slightest movement.

“It took me, urged on by the spiders, only seven days to cover the distance that I had taken ten to accomplish coming in.

“Toward night we began to hear the roar of the Caroni River as it struggled through a raudal, or rapid, on its way to the Orinoco.

“Suddenly, about a mile ahead, there burst out a pandemonium of frightful screams that I recognized as humans voicing inhuman terror. The great brutes scuttled on faster, so that I was hard put to keep my place. Clouds of smoke rolled up ahead of us from a campfire, and presently we broke out of the forest and saw the flames. A tribe of ugly natives were trapped by the river, where they had made camp in a clearing, building their fire on a sandy spot. Around them, the tall reed-like grass, shoulder-high to a tall man, waved and shuddered and bent low with the rush of the spider army.

“The men had been surrounded and held until the arrival of the king, and as we came up, I recognized their paint and tribal marks to be those of the Guaharibo Indians, savage men who slay for the love of murder and who had roved from their home near the upper reaches of the Orinoco, searching for heads and loot.