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The Spider by Arthur Edwards Chapman · Weird Tales Presents: Web of the Spider!

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  Section four of Weird Tales presents Web of the Spider. This is a LibriVox
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  recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
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  to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Weird Tales presents Web of the
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  Spider. The Spider by Arthur Edwards Chapman. I tell you, ron it
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  was queer uncanny. My friend Ronald Tytherington laughed and weighed the little golden spider
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  in his palm. You don't mean to suggest, do you, he replied,
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  that this little mass of gold and carbon is capable of exercising control over
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  the human will. The thing is valuable, I'll grant you those diamond eyes
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  must be worth at least a couple of hundred apiece. But as for anything
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  else absurd. I got up and stood with my back to the fireplace,
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  somewhat piqued at my companion's incredulity. You can believe it or not, ron
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  I said, but I do most certainly suggest that such a thing happened.
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  What did I go to the sale for? Not to purchase that comparatively insignificant
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  ornament, you must agree, No, I went to secure for my collection
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  those things that would make it the finest in the country, and I got
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  them. But I tell you Ron that when that little spider was put up,
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  I felt a strange desire come over me, an overpowering determination to possess
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  the thing. I don't know why it should have been, so I'm not
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  going to try to explain it. Beside those other antiques, it was as
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  nothing, and yet I would willingly at that moment have exchanged them all for
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  it. The diamond eyes of the thing were magnetic. They impelled me,
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  even against my mind's ruling. I say again, it was uncanny. Titherington
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  listened to my rather heated recital with a quiet smile on his thin lips,
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  and, taking his cigarette from his case, lit it thoughtfully. Let me
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  see, he mused, slowly, as though speaking to himself. Wasn't this
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  same spider found by the body of the late Sir Nicholas Goldby when he was
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  discovered dead under such mysterious circumstances some months ago? Yes, I agreed.
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  He had brought it from the east, and the police held it to be
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  a sacred jewel, and that Sir Nicholas had met his death at the hands
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  of some Hindoo fanatics who sought to return it to the despoiled temple, Ah,
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  cried Titherington, suddenly seeming mightily pleased with himself. So you remember all
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  that, do you? Of course? I said, surprised, Why not,
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  seeing that I had so great an interest in the dead man's collection?
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  Then don't you think, he said deliberately, that it was the very happenings
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  associated with the spider that caused you to act as you did. In other
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  words, wasn't it a case of intensely heightened imagination? You mean it was
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  my vivid recollection of the facts connected with the case that may be desired to
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  possess the thing, and that I attributed to the spider a power which really
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  was the outcome of my own eagerness. I shook my head, unconvinced.
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  Exactly, look here, Allan, the facts fit together like the pieces of
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  a jigsaw puzzle, didn't you say? A dark foreign man bid against you
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  very heavily for the jewel, and when you outbid him, he implored you
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  to let him have it. Well, what is more natural than that the
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  guardians of the jewel, having failed to obtain it by force, should seek
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  to take advantage of this opportunity to secure it. It seems to me,
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  Allan, that you have need to watch against human rather than supernatural powers.
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  Then you think that the foreigner might try to steal the spider from me?
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  Yes, Titherington replied, getting up and stretching himself. Take my advice and
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  keep your eye on the thing. Well, I'm off to bed. It's
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  eleven o'clock. Good night, old man. I bade him good night,
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  and, after he had gone, lit another cigarette and sat before the dying
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  fire for a final smoke, casting my thoughts back over the strange events of
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  the day. For all my friend's reasoning, I was not convinced there was
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  something strange about that golden spider. I was sure. I gazed at it
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  where it rested upon a little china cabinet by the window, and tried to
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  read some signs of hidden force in those great diamond eyes. But no,
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  the thing was ordinary enough, simply a mass of gold and carbon. As
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  Titherington had said. Throwing the stump of my cigarette into the fireplace, I
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  rose slowly and switched off the light. Then I retired, feeling well pleased
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  with myself and the world in general. As the result of my day's work,
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  and wishing nothing better than to yield myself to the Goddess of sleep.
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  But for once that deity, usually so quick to respond to my call,
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  failed to smile favorably upon me, and I turned restlessly in my bed,
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  listening to the faint rustling of leaves outside the window, and the multitudinous other
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  sounds that materialized in so mysterious a manner in the fancy of the wakeful.
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  In the hall below, the great clock chimed the half of eleven, and
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  I found myself counting its ponderous ticks, and picturing the massive pendulum swinging,
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  always swinging, slowly monotonously in its glass prison. Tick tick tock it went,
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  forcing itself me with such insistence that presently I could no longer hear it
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  through the very intensity of my listening. Once more, I turned on my
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  left side and faced the window, which was wide open. The night being
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  a warm one, the moon had risen, and a narrow beam of light
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  shone between the curtains, painting a silvery path along the carpet to the door,
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  so that I was able mentally to trace the grotesque forms of impossible flowers
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  twining their way through Greek keys that failed to unlock the door of the Temple
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  of Sleep. Ding Dong Ding Dong ding Dong chimed the never sleeping sentinel,
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  and as I listened to the knell of the quarter which had passed, I
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  became suddenly conscious of a new sound of which I had not been aware before,
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  and which I could not reconcile with any known cause. It was a
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  strange, muffled drumming, something like the ticking of a watch within a metal
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  cylinder. Of course, it was the ticking of my own watch, hung
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  upon the bedrail, which acted as a sounding word for it. I smiled
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  to myself as the utter simplicity of the explanation came to me, and raised
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  my head confidently to confirm my reasoning. The watch stopped at twenty five minutes
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  past eleven. Strange, What could it have been? I listened as I
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  propped myself upon my elbow, But now I could not hear it. It
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  must have been fancy, I thought, and lay down again. But barely
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  had my head touched the pillow. Then thump, thump, thump, came
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  the noise with mechanical regularity, and then, with stunning force, the solution
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  hurled itself at me. As I pressed a hand against my breast, it
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  was the beating of my own heart. A hot clammy wave passed over my
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  body. At this realization, an unreasoning, nervous dread took possession of me,
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  and I knew that I was afraid, horribly afraid of something which had
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  no tangible existence. As I struggled with this strange feeling, and called myself
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  a fool for permitting fears of so childish in nature to overcome me, I
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  saw something that caused my heart to give a great leap and my blood to
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  chill in my veins. Framed in the doorway, glaring at me from the
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  impenetrable blackness of the corridor beyond, were two large, unblinking eyes, shining
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  in the reflected light, like the headlamps of a motor gleaming like a couple
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  of immense diamonds. Then, as I gazed in unbounded horror the glittering eyes,
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  a great hairy leg crept slowly, hesitatingly into the silver beam, feeling
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  the ground before it and wavering uncertainty. Presently, this was joined by another,
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  and yet a third, hovering in mid air for a few seconds before
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  they came to rest on the carpet. I tried to turn my head away
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  in fearful anticipation of what was to come, but I could not. There
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  was something magnetic uncanny about those diamond eyes that impelled me, even against my
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  mind's rolling, And as I sat helplessly bound with fetters of unspeakable dread,
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  the wavering legs were followed by a fearsome skull like head, armed with a
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  pair of great pincer fangs that opened and closed continuously with a rasping clicking sound,
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  which caused my very hair to bristle. And presently the things stood,
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  revealed in its hideous loathsome entirety. There it was, ruddy, golden in
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  the moonlight, evil, horrible, like some huge hairy bear merciful heaven.
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  It was the spider, and it was coming toward me with those hesitating,
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  creeping steps, slowly, noiselessly. I tried to cry out, but my
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  tongue refused to articulate. I would have leaped from the bed and fled before
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  this nightmare, but I could not move. That sinister magnetic eye held me
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  motionless, and I groaned inwardly with indescribable anguish, while the hot perspiration stood
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  in beads on my forehead. Nearer and nearer it drew. Its outstretched legs
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  felt the coverlet they brushed my shrinking body horror. They enfolded me in an
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  ever tightening embrace. I stared into those awful, gleaming orbs that seemed to
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  gloat over my helplessness, and for a tense moment, the thing remained motionless.
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  Below the clock struck the hour of twelve. There was a loud,
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  painful buzzing in my head. Then the spells seemed to fall from me,
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  and as the great fangs of the thing groped from my throat, I gave
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  a loud cry and hurled myself with the blind madness of despair at the foul,
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  hairy shape, falling to the carpeted floor, locked in that real,
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  relentless embrace. I have but a hazy recollection of what occurred next. It
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  seemed that I was mad. I struggled and kicked frantically in my futile efforts
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  to avoid those fearsome things that were gripping my bared throat. Perhaps I screamed.
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  I faintly remember my outstretched hand touching something that was cold, solid,
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  and a sharp, thrilling sense of exultation passed through me. As I rained
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  wild blows, sickening, crunching blows on the hideous grinning head. A loathsome
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  putrid mass oozed out. The hairy legs slackened and grew rigid. My madness
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  spent. I rolled over on the floor. My stomach revolted. I was
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  nauseated, sickened, I swooned. They found me lying, apparently lifeless,
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  on the floor, and firmly grasped in my hand a heavy iron pokery.
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  Its diamond eyes crushed the powder and battered, almost beyond recognition. Lay the
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  golden spider end of section four. The Spider Bread by Marissa D six Largo,
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  Florida, September twenty eighth, twenty twenty three.