“Something’s hurt down there,” cried Page Lomax exultingly. “I only hope it’s Hosein or his nigger. As wishes cost nothing, I wish it were both. Here goes for beam number two!”
In a crevice in the wall, just over the end of the second rafter of the upper three, the wind had lodged a seed one day and from it a sturdy little pine had sprung up. Hunting for food, it had thrust down the hungry fibres of its roots to feed upon the mortar. It had been nodding good cheer to the young man, as the breezes played leap-frog with it, and he hated to hurt it, but he had to. Grasping it, he wrenched it from its lodging-house. Its roots could not bear to bid adieu to being. They clung so closely to the rough ashlar round which they had twined that the stone was twisted out with them and crashed to the tiles below, leaving the second beam free at this end, so that Page Lomax could send it after the first one.
The third rafter of the upper three was fat with turpentine. Scratching a match, the young man held it under the oiliest streak, until a feeble blaze stole up. Waxing lustier, it parted with sparkling fingers its blue veil of smoke that it might the better gnaw through the bar on which it was at work. When the beam had nearly burned in two, Page Lomax shoved it upward. It broke. In a twinkling, it had gone outside to join the others.
“Now, Zaidee,” he cried, as he cast himself face downward on the great spider’s back, “Throw yourself here beside me. Rest your toes against that same little ledge back of her head. Grip the other as you did before. She’ll bounce over that wall, in the next ten seconds. When she hits the ground and settles down on her hind-legs, jump, jump for your life, and run for the boat with me.”
Mad with the exhilaration of approaching liberty, the huge creature dived out over her prison wall, alighting noiselessly and without a jar. Giving no heed to Page Lomax and Zaidee, as they fled, she raced like the wind along her shortest line of approach toward Nakir. He was too far from Hosein’s home ever to reach it, with her in pursuit. She was between him and the summer-house. The tower alone remained. Rushing to it, he threw the bar, tore the door open and, plunging headlong through it, whirled it to. It had no fastenings on the inner side. As it swung outward, he must keep it closed in some way or be devoured. Flinging himself down, he dug his nails between its stout oak transverse and its upright panels and bore on with all his weight. The spider tapped once or twice on the door. It still remaining closed, she squatted down before it. After a few seconds, during which she seemed to be studying, her terrible eyes dwelt at last on the crack between the door and the doorstep. In a trice, she reached her claws through and sank them into the door on the inner side. In spite of Nakir’s frantic struggling, she fetched it round. With her fierce grappling-hooks, she pounced upon him. Bellowing with mingled fear and pain, he struck at her with his dagger, but she fell back on her haunches, haling him to her. Her grappling-hooks raised him close to her red jaws. A sudden flash of savage color—and the blades of those jaws sprang apart—another—as they snapped together—a blood-curdling scream—a sickening gush of blood—then silence. Hosein’s spider had sacrificed her hundredth man.
EDUCATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
