A few moments later I heard the pursuing car crash into our deserted one. I had hoped that my maneuver might effectively wreck our pursuers, but apparently it did not do so, for soon I heard the sounds of ant-men following us through the wood.
As we were not using our lights, they could not follow us by sight, and, as we were not talking, they could not follow us by sound, for of course they could hear nothing but radiations from our antennae, regardless of how we crashed through the underbrush. Luckily I thought of this and so did not waste any time in trying to be noiseless.
The sound of the ant-men grew fainter and fainter behind us, until suddenly we stumbled into a network of ropes. It was an old and stale spider’s web. Immediately a bright idea occurred to me, and flashing on my light, I hunted for, and found, the spider’s cave; and into it I led the princess.
The tunnel of the spider was about four feet in diameter. I crawled ahead on my hands and knees, and the princess followed me.
“They’ll never think to look for us in a deserted spider nest,” said I in a low voice, and was just about to add some more reassuring words when Lilla broke in with “Quick, Myles there’s something following us!”
“Get behind me,” I cautioned as I hurriedly wheeled and crawled past her.
True! Something was following us down the passage. I switched on my flash-light, and found myself face to face with a huge spider. So the nest had not been deserted after all!
The spider steadily approached. I held my ground, and Lilla cowered behind me. One touch of his horrid spit meant certain death, as I well knew, and yet how could I combat him? At least, I could die fighting.
And when he had killed us both, there was the satisfaction of knowing that Yuri would never learn what had become of us and would always picture us together somewhere, safe from his clutches. And who knows but perhaps he would be right, if God provided the same heaven for both Cupians and earth folk.
All these thoughts ran through my head in much less time than it takes to set them down. And then I prepared to defend myself, or rather to defend the beautiful creature who depended upon me.