Latest / Weird Tales Presents: Web of the Spider! / The City of Spiders by H. Warner Munn

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The City of Spiders by H. Warner Munn · Weird Tales Presents: Web of the Spider!

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  Section two 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. Read by Ben Tucker. Weird
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  Tails presents Web of the Spider. The City of Spiders by H. Warner
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  Munn. It was on the twelve thirty train from Athol to Boston that I
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  met the man with the beady eyes. I mentioned the eyes particularly, for
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  they were the distinctive features. It is very odd that they are all that
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  I can remember of his appearance. Vaguely. I recall that he wore a
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  gray suit, rather light for our changeable November weather, but even that is
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  uncertain. It was a cut right day, with a slash and prices for
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  an excursion, and the coach was well filled. He got on at Gardener
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  with a small crowd that hustled him down the aisle and washed him beside me
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  so bewildered that, without bothering to ask me if the other half of my
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  seat was taken, he plumped himself down with a relieved sigh. Rather cool,
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  I thought, and without knowing it, I must have spoken aloud,
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  for he nodded brightly, with a quick little snap of his head, saying,
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  yes, isn't it. Amused at the natural mistake, I determined,
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  since he was so friendly, to strike up an acquaintance, to while away
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  the tedium of a three hours ride, and incidentally, perhaps to learn something
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  that might be of value to me in a novel I am writing. Every
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  man has in him one good story, if it can only be dug out,
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  But some are buried pretty deep. I forget our first words. But
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  we exhausted the subject of the weather rather thoroughly, and were pleasantly drifting into
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  a discussion of our fellow passengers when I noticed a movement on his sleeve.
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  It was one of the common barn spiders that are so often seen for stooning
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  rafters with velvety, soft hangings of dove gray, probably chilled by the cold
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  wind outside. The warmth of the car had brought it out of its concealment
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  to reconnoiter. A spider gives me the creeps, now more than ever that
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  I know why. But then, as always, I felt a surge of
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  revulsion, struck off his arm and crushed it with my foot. He was
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  smiling oddly when I looked up. Do you know why you did that?
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  He said, because I hate the things? I answered, always did.
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  I think the word you mean is dislike, he replied. But I can
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  truly say that I hate them, for I know more about them in one
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  sense than any other living man on earth. To day, shall I tell
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  you why do? I said, smiled a secret smile within me, and
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  prepared to take mental notes, for I scented a story at last, one
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  into unknown country. My name is Jabez Pintreat, he began. My mother
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  was English and my father was a Welsh miner. They moved to this country
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  in eighteen eighty seven, two years before I was born. As work was
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  scarce in living but a bare existence in the old country. Here they found
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  it but little better, although with more ambition they might have become moderately well
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  to do. When I was young, things were in a bad way for
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  us. Father worked spasmodically, while mother took in washings to tide us over
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  hard times. We never had much money. I went to grade school until
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  I was fourteen, and was then obliged to leave in order that I might
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  bring in a few dollars by my bodily labor brains counted for nothing in the
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  manufacturing tone where I lived. It was one of father's favorite sayings that but
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  Larnin never did nobody no good, So you see I was up against it.
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  Three years later I ran away from home. I found work in Boston
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  and connection with a fruit importing company, and learned something of the world as
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  represented by the harbor ports of South America. In one of those little coast
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  towns, I met a man who was to change my life. You have
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  heard of Sir Adlington Carew, the man who astounded the scientific world with his
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  masterly monograph on Possibilities of the insect world. I asked that was he answered
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  the man with the beady eyes to him, I am indebted for all my
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  knowledge at his own expense. I finished school and entered college at his desire.
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  I concentrated upon botany, entomology, and other kindred studies, for he
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  hoped that I should take his place in the line of discoverers. When he
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  was gone, well, I can say with pride that his pains were not
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  wasted upon me. Although he is not where he can appreciate the changes that
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  time has wrought upon that crude roused about that I was. Then I understand
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  that he is on the west coast of Africa at present, experimenting with the
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  higher forms of apes. South America always fascinated me with its magnificent opportunities for
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  studying insect life. It is a forcing house for vegetation, and in its
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  dank, steaming jungles for thousands of square miles, untouched by white feet.
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  Who knows what marvelous things may exist, all unknown to the outer world.
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  I have found a few, but I have only skimmed the edges, and
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  never expect to learn much more, although I leave again in the spring.
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  Have you ever paused to think of the swarming life that goes on day after
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  day beneath your feet, busy with its own affairs, as you with yours.
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  Another world goes about its business of loves and hates, of living and
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  dying, of little engineering works as important to them as a Brooklyn bridge or
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  a Panama canal to us, although one step of your foot can destroy the
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  work of days. There are grass eaters, and there are carnivores that prey
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  upon them, and others that in turn feed upon the slayers. There are
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  cities and miniature, slaves and masters, workers, idlers, miners, and
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  aviators, and all this teeming life may be in your own back yard,
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  unnoticed, except when your wife complains, because the ants persist in finding the
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  sugar bowl, and the flies just will get in somehow. And remember,
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  this life is alien to us, although it is so similar to us in
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  some ways. It is a world in itself far from humans. One writer
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  I have read remarks in a joking way that it may even be alien to
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  this planet. Here is a thought that I would like to have you ponder.
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  While all other insects have their appointed prey, each feeding upon one certain
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  enemy herbivore or plant, and rarely touching other types of food. Thus,
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  by the wise pervasion of nature, keeping down the swarming life that otherwise would
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  overwhelm humanity, the spider feeds indiscriminately upon all. The spider dread ogre of
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  the insect world. How he is feared not only by his prey, but
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  also by man, against whom, by reason of his size, and that
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  alone he has but little power. In South America is the insect paradise.
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  Nowhere else will you find such impenetrable morasses, such dank and steamy jungles,
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  such unbelievable monstrosities in both vegetable and animal kingdoms. But I digress to my
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  tale then, and think your own thoughts. I ask for no comment or
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  interruption. In search of a sable butterfly with a coffin outlined and white upon
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  each wing, of which only one collector has ever secured a specimen, I
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  came at last to Ciadad Bolivar, which lies in Venezuela. In this town
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  I obtained eight native Indians, who were invaluable at times and nuisances at others.
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  We searched in that mysterious mountain land of Guiana, entering where the Caroni
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  River empties into the Orinoco. The Coroni's waters are combed by cataracts and rapids,
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  but are well known. For fifty miles here the dense woods begin in
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  man's knowledge ends for accepting myself, I believe no white man has ever explored
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  those forests. It is one of the mystery lands of Venezuela, the never
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  never lands, where almost anything can happen, and usually does. Usually a
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  white in that section is rather a being to be taken care of, as
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  white men are more valuable in a gift producing way, alive than dead.
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  But there are tribes of nomadic Indians, head hunters by choice, that roam
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  the dismal forests, and to them the head of white men shrunk to the
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  size of an orange. Is there Kohenour or great Mogul. Not far away
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  live the Makitaries, a tribe of blonds almost white, and at a greater
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  distance the Guaharibos, whose savagery has never allowed the head waters of the Orinoco
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  to be discovered. My Indians sometimes heard their drums growling to one another far
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  away in the steamy tropic nights, but they came always from the north and
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  south, never from the west, toward which we were pressing. On the
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  sixth day from the river, we heard them behind us, but still far
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  away. And as we cooked our meals and the tambo, a rude shelter
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  from the night dews, such as the rubber hunters farther south, construct sometimes
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  we wondered why they were upon all sides, but never before. On the
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  ninth day we heard nothing but the ceaseless drip, drip drip into the swampy
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  ground, and occasionally the roar of some dead forest giant crashing to earth,
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  choked to death by parasitic vines that hid the tree from sight. That night,
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  the hunters came back empty handed. We had not seen any animal all
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  day, not even the usual troop of monkeys that howled down curses at us,
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  swinging along under the forest roof, dropping fruit skins and nuts upon us,
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  and warning all life for miles that strangers were at hand. We made
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  hungry camp, for we traveled light, and my mind were disposed to grumble
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  because we were in unknown country and no one knew what lay before us.
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  The black butterfly was given up now, but I determined to press on three
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  days more and then to give it up as a bad job and go back,
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  for I already had enough specimens to repay me for my trip. Before
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  I curled up in my hammock, I shook it to dislodge any insects that
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  might be in its folds, and out dropped a large spider the size of
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  my hand. I smashed it with my boot, and at the same time
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  saw another. As I struck that one, screams arose from my Indians,
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  and they dashed for the fire. One was literally covered with the vermin and
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  dropped before he reached the light. In a moment, we loaded the blaze
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  with brush and had a bonfire that roared six foot flames. Two prisoners of
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  insects. You cannot imagine the scene that met our sight. The things covered
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  the ground and trees all about us. A carpet of gray was moving and
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  rustling continually back from the light, and as the flames shot higher, we
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  could see that the twigs and branches hung low with their weight. Now and
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  then one would drop with a PLoP on the ground as the light struck in
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  scuttle over the backs of others till it found a place to rest. My
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  hammock was now filled with the crawling things as a saucers heaped with berries,
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  sickening gray creatures with jet black eyes that glistened hungrily and all intently watching us.
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  We could hear a kind of low clicking and chittering as they opened and
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  closed their mandibles. It seemed as though they were talking to one another while
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  they waited for us in a curiously knowing way, and those pinpoint eyes watched
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  and gloated most obscenely expectant. The body of the dead man was just outside
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  the circle of light, and all night, a swarming heap of spiders surged
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  over and around it, while my indians fed the fire. For their lives
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  and race and cast were forgotten as we huddled mast about the fire, sweat
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  raining from us in the terrible heat. Morning came at last, and as
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  the sky began to brighten, the gray horrors grew thinner, until only a
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  few stragglers still roamed near the clean picked skeleton, And when the sun rose,
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  they too crept to hiding places, leaving only the white bones to tell
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  the story of that frightful night. When all were gone, my indians begged
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  me to turn back. I refused, although my own inclinations pointed in that
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  direction. I kept bold face and pointed out that by going west we would
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  avoid the savages and leave this dreaded spot behind us. My headman looked grim
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  but said nothing. So on again on into the jungle, fighting our way
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  through thick, tangled undergrowth, followed by dense clouds of mosquitoes and gnats,
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  the only life we saw that day besides ourselves. About noon, although we
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  could not see the sun through the riot of vegetation, we found a small
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  stream of clear water which abounded in small fish. We dined royally on fish
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  and fruit in the midst of a deathlike stillness. Not a leaf rustle,
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  no birds, saying, not a monkey or any other animal did we see
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  that day? And in the same breathless hush we made our tent and last
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  tambo that evening, having covered perhaps fifteen miles during the day. Keeping in
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  mind the former night, we selected a clear open space for the erecting of
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  our shelters, brought in an immense quity of wood, and sat around the
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  fire in that charmingly complete and unqualified democracy of man when a common danger threatens.
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  Before long, just as the drums snarled faintly to the east, a
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  little black and red creatures scuttled out of the wood, bustled down to the
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  water's edge, and drank daintily. I recognized one of the most venomous of
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  the arachnids, usually the size of a silver dollar, but the specimen was
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  easily five inches across his scarlet barred body. I determined to have it,
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  and cautiously loosened my butterfly net from my pack. This breed is very timid,
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  although its bite is so deadly that I crept up on it with the
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  utmost care. About five feet away, it saw me, and instead of
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  darting away, it jumped in my direction out of pure fright. I crushed
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  it flat, and the scenes of the night before were repeated almost identically.
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  But now there were many of the new species mingled with the gray demons that
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  had dragged down the bearer. It seemed as though there were concentric circles of
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  varying types arranged about a central point, and the nearer we approached the center,
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  the more horrible and huge grew the individuals that composed each belt. I
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  began to wonder what lay farther on. Again, we shivered around a roaring
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  fire, speaking only in low whispers. The natives believed that our besiegers were
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  forest devils, enraged at us for intruding into their private fastnesses. Several times
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  I feared for my life that night, for dark looks were cast at me,
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  and twice there were those who advised strongly that I should be flung out
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  to the filthy things as a sacrifice. But they could not quite screw up
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  the courage to that point, for they knew that I would not submit tamely,
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  and they feared that the taste of blood might enrage the creatures into a
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  rush, which would wipe out the survivors. A sleepless night, a night
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  of horror beneath gloating, incredibly malignant eyes, a night that was a cross
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  section of eternity. About two hours before morning, I dozed off, being
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  startled awake again almost instantly by yells of fright Before me, just outside the
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  firelight, crouched a gigantic monstrosity, hairy and tremendous. Its bloated abdomen was
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  barred with black and silver, the head almost hidden from sight by a yellow
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  mop of fur, from which projected jet black mandibles, furiously vibrating as it
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  watched us through red vicious eyes. Behind those eyes, I sensed a personality
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  keenly intelligent. I found myself waiting for the frightful thing to speak, and
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  was horrified at the thought. You cannot credit I know, but I who
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  saw am telling you the truth. I believed then that fearful spider was as
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  intelligent as you or I in a more limited way. And I can assure
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  you that it is an absolute fact that the other hideous vermin acknowledged it as
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  their superior It stood at least a foot and a half high, and I
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  should judge that it would have tipped the scales at about twenty pounds. It
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  walked about the fire at a safe distance and carefully observed us twice from all
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  angles. Then it moved off in a westerly direction, and we saw the
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  others draw back from in front of it, respectfully, leaving a broad path
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  down which it passed, and they closed in solidly. Again, the same
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  actions took place as on the preceding morning. Scatteringly, they vanished with the
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  dawn, leaving a few stragglers that seemed to regret the necessity that drove them
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  off. There was no question now about what we should do. Rather than
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  spend another such night, we would have braved a thousand savages about ten o'clock
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  in the forenoon. Therefore we started back, But we had gone too far.
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  Before we had gone a mile. On our back trail, we heard
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  rustling in the bushes and crepitent pattering as of rain drops, while sometimes we
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  could see small gray bodies bounding along beside us. Still we pressed on.
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  The march became a trot, and the trot a wild, disorderly route.
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  We flung away our packs, our weapons and our clothes, and a mad
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  dash for anywhere but away. We mounted a small knoll and looked back.
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  A sea of gray, black and red lapped around us like an island,
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  almost level with the water, over which the waves threatened momentarily to break.
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  Slowly from all sides, they crept in, rising higher like the chill waters
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  of death. We broke clubs from the trees and prepared to die. Then
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  came that horror of the night, hustling on from the west, with five
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  companions that matched it in size. The resistless torrent that was just lapping over
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  the crest of the knoll stopped and receded. The six came closer, scrutinized
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  us, and started back down the bank, pausing about ten feet away.
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  As though we were expected to follow, we did. We all had the
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  same thought at once, to kill the most hideous ones, and then as
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  many more as we could before we died. So we ran down the slope,
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  and the man in front of me crashed his club through the largest of
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  the six. Instantly we were covered from head to foot with crawling insects,
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  and as we rolled over and over, shrieking and howling with fear, feeling
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  the spiders pop and squelch beneath our weight, like ripe plums. An acrid,
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  nauseous stench arose. As we lay there, half dead with sick terror.
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  I noticed that no more were on me. The masses had withdrawn,
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  and one of the larger insects stood very close to my face. On each
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  ebony mandible a drop of venom glistening. Perhaps it was our first visitor,
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  but they all looked alike to me. I jumped up. The Indians lay
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  on a red, noisome carpet of crushed bodies, and we were all covered
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  with a pulpy mess. One by one they stood up, and we discovered
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  that not one of us had been bitten. Then the hordes opened invitingly again
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  a westward path, and we walked down it as prisoners, the prisoners of
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  insects. But one stayed behind. He was a man who had destroyed the
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  large spider. Apparently at a signal, the mass closed in about him,
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  cutting him off from the rest of us. He tried to run to us
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  as they forced us down the trail, but in an instant he was a
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  staggering, bellowing heap of vermin that tottered a few steps and went down.
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  Before we were out of sight, his howls had become moans, and we
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  knew what the end would be. So, with one of the great yellow
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  headed brutes in the lead, one at each side of us, and two
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  bringing up the rear, we came again to the fatal tombo number ten and
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  passed westward, following the brook, the swarms surrounding us on all sides as
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  thickly packed as leaves. Three the spider king, about a mile farther on
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  the brook, emptied into a small river. This we followed down on the
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  right hand bank till the middle of the afternoon, when we struck a well
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  defined path, hard beaten by much travel. The throng of gray spiders now
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  began to disappear, having reached their farthest boundary, the five black and silver
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  guards still remaining, and many of the red and sable fellows. But when
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  a short time later the path was barred by an immense crowd of frightful monsters
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  similar to those that guarded us, the small spiders also returned to their own
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  zone. Just as dusk was falling, we marched out of the jungle into
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  the open, and surrounded by hundreds of silver barred brutes were forced down an
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  incline into a valley. It was bare of vegetation, and in the center
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  stood several stone buildings clustered about a larger and more pretentious edifice. These were
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  windowless and doorless, being entered through a trap in the flat roof. They
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  made me think of the nests of trap door spiders. As we neared these
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  buildings, a jaguar or tikhre as the natives termit, came racing down the
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  valley, and behind it poured a hideous mob that hid the ground from sight,
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  beneath a palpitant, undulating surface that made my skin crawl to watch.
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  He staggered nearer as though he sought the protection of man, and I saw
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  that his tongue hung out as he panted in the last throes of exhaustion.
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  On the beast's back rode a large spider, which urged the poor animal on
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  to death, and as they reached the nearest buildings, sank its poison into
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  the beast's spine, and El Tigrae dropped like a stone. Now we saw
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  a forecast of our own fate. It was plain that we had been brought
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  to this gathering place to be buttered. Meet on the hoof, less troublesome
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  to bring than if it were dead. A wave of frightened animals dashed up,
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  a chattering monkey or two, many hares, snakes that writhed in agony,
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  have crippled by bites and dragged along by their captors. Lizards that hissed
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  with mouths wide open. The lizards were the only ones that fought. Then
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  from the western valley wall, another herd poured down a great anaconda, coiling
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  beside a cluster of peckeries, closely bunched together and squealing with terror, and
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  behind all swarm of hunters. Never before had I seen so many different breeds
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  of spiders dwelling in amity one another. And again I had the impression that
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  these were intelligent, reasoning beings, hunting together for the good of the many,
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  and as far above the ordinary spider as the Anglo Saxon is above the
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  Australian bushmen. Now we were gathering in a cluster about the stone huts.
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  Hunters and hunted. A motley crew herded from all points of the compass over
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  a twenty mile radius, and the spiders set up a vast clacking of mandibles
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  and emitted little, hungry, yearning cries. In answer, I heard thuds
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  on the low roofs as the trap doors fell back, and from each structure
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  called a creature that dwarfed our captors into insignificance. It was a disgusting,
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  heart stopping sight, and our stomachs wretched as we saw eight enormous spiders,
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  each the size of a horse. But it was not their incredible size and
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  filthiness, nor their bloated bodies, which betokened an unthinkable age that so horrified
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  our souls. It was the look of an incredible superhuman knowledge within their eyes,
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  a knowledge not of this earth or air, A look as they saw
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  us, that might shine in the eyes of Lucifer, conscious of a kingdom
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  or a world that had been gained, ruled, and lost. And I
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  knew that they looked upon us as an upstart race born to serve, that
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  had, by a freakish accident, turned the tables on a master's This,
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  I say I read in their eyes, but my memory may be colored by
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  the things I later knew. The monsters pounced down, selecting the choicest foods
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  before them. One seized the carcass of a deer and bore it to the
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  roof top, mumbling down its juices, which would soon leave it a dry,
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  mummified husk of bones and hide. Another selected a large peckory or wild
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  pig, and a third chose a savage lizard that killed three of the Black
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  and Silver guards before it was stung into helplessness. A man was snatched from
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  my side, shrieking as he was dragged to the roof top and down into
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  the building, his cries cut short by the shutting of the trap. Then
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  one took me by the side, and I gave myself up for dead.
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  I have read of men that have been caught by lions, clawed and bitten,
• 22:02
  but feel no pain till long after they have been rescued. So it
• 22:04
  was with me. I felt neither pain nor fear as I was borne to
• 22:07
  the roof as a mouse as carried by a cat, but only regret that
• 22:11
  I might have done so many things that now I should never live to do.
• 22:15
  The creature dropped me upon the stone roof and inspected my clothing, which
• 22:19
  seemed to puzzle it. Then with a talon it felt of my skin,
• 22:23
  whose whiteness I do not doubt was unfamiliar. Daintily and with exceeding care,
• 22:27
  it sank its hollow fings into my arm and commenced the drinking of my blood.
• 22:33
  I felt no pain, only a haze before my eyes and a giddiness.
• 22:37
  As I fainted up from an unfathomable abyss of sleep, I swam,
• 22:42
  cleaving my way to consciousness with mighty strokes. I opened my eyes and saw
• 22:47
  that I still lived. I was lying on the roof, with the eight
• 22:49
  horrors around me. The sun was set like a jewel upon a mountain top,
• 22:53
  nearly at the day's close. The valley was a shambles, covered with
• 22:57
  spiders gruesomely feasting. One seemed to be communicating with the others. He was
• 23:03
  the largest of all and appeared to be in power, so that later I
• 23:06
  dubbed him king. This was the one that had chosen me and had curiously
• 23:10
  not finished his meal. Now, one at a time, each came up,
• 23:14
  placed its fangs upon my wounded arm, and tasted of my blood.
• 23:18
  When all had done this, there was another silent colloquy, and finally,
• 23:21
  at some mysterious signal, several of the guards and Silver took me off the
• 23:23
  roof, half carrying, half dracking me to another building, into which I
• 23:27
  was dropped and the door closed down. The air inside was fresh and pure,
• 23:32
  ventilated through cracks in the rude walls. A dim light that seeped in
• 23:36
  revealed that there were no furnishings in the room except a low daze in one
• 23:38
  corner, obviously built for one of the great spiders, and a runway that
• 23:41
  slanted from the floor to the roof door. The interior was swathed in webs
• 23:45
  so thickly hung that it seemed a tapestry. I tore down part of this
• 23:49
  to admit more light, but the sun sank below the mountains. I slept
• 23:53
  a dreamless sleep upon the days, getting what consolation I could from the thought
• 23:57
  that tomorrow was another day, and at any rate I was seeing things that
• 24:02
  had not been seen before for inquisition. I awoke with a start. The
• 24:08
  light of the morning poured down through the open trap, But as I was
• 24:11
  considering the advisability of climbing up the runway, a large body filled the opening
• 24:17
  and backed down like a cat descending a tree. Half Way down, the
• 24:21
  spider king reversed ends and came head first, sliding down the polished slide,
• 24:26
  worn smooth by many great bodies. I stood up, dizzy with the pain
• 24:30
  of my wounded arm, which had begun to fester over night. The monster
• 24:34
  approached, took my arm in his mandibles, and apparently observed that it was
• 24:38
  enormously swollen, for he shifted his hold and cleaned out the wound with a
• 24:42
  talon, afterward injecting something by means of his hollow mandibles. The pain lessened,
• 24:48
  and in three days the swelling was gone, and I was well on
• 24:51
  the road to recovery. After this natural antiseptic had commenced its work, my
• 24:56
  captor exuded a quantity of raw web material from one of its triple joints its
• 25:00
  spinnerets, and placed the sticky mass upon my arm, where it dried and
• 25:03
  hardened. He then stared unblinking into my eyes for several minutes, and again
• 25:08
  I had the impression of a mighty intelligence and that loathsome carcass that wished to
• 25:14
  communicate with mine. Finding that I made no response, the king urged me
• 25:18
  toward the runway by shoves, and with his assistance, I managed to reach
• 25:22
  the roof and looked around me. The day was fair, not a living
• 25:25
  thing moved in the valley, except a few of the guards, busy dragging
• 25:27
  away the skeleton of a sloth. None of my Indians were visible, but
• 25:32
  I guessed their fate. All had perished in the night, and I was
• 25:34
  the only survivor. The King carried me to water, his fangs gripped in
• 25:38
  my clothes, and I drank deeply, after which I was carried back to
• 25:41
  the hut and dropped in like a sack of meal. About an hour later
• 25:45
  the trap opened and alive Agoti dropped in and the door fell. I wondered
• 25:49
  if I was supposed to eat the little rabbit like animal, but I wasn't
• 25:52
  hungry enough for that. So I lay down upon the days and nursed my
• 25:56
  throbbing arm, while my fellow prisoner hid under the runway. In the morning
• 26:00
  dragged along to midday, the spider King appeared a second time and investigated my
• 26:04
  condition. When he saw that the wound was not so angrily inflamed, he
• 26:08
  eyed me gravely, with a sage air of pondering the case for all the
• 26:12
  world, like a little German doctor of my acquaintance. I almost expected to
• 26:17
  hear him say och Dolt's gout again. He assisted me to climb the polished
• 26:22
  slide, and upon the roof I found the other monsters. My captor set
• 26:26
  me down with a proud air of showing off a curiosity to an interested audience,
• 26:30
  and squatted down where he could look into my eyes. I observed that
• 26:33
  the entire eight were males, and wondered whether there were others in the buildings.
• 26:37
  If so, they must be frightful. Indeed, for the female spiders
• 26:41
  usually larger and more ferocious than her mate, and often uses him as food
• 26:45
  when other dainties run low in the larder. Engrossed with such thoughts, I
• 26:48
  failed to notice at first that objects around me were growing hazy and vague in
• 26:53
  outline. It was as though gauze curtains were being lowered between me and the
• 26:57
  spiders. They dimmed, and I strained my eyes to see them. Then
• 27:02
  another curtain descended and the world went dark. It seemed that inside my skull,
• 27:07
  the brain began to itch. I can think of no better simile,
• 27:11
  as though a light tendril of cobweb had been laid across it. Cautiously searching
• 27:15
  the feeler groped in the convulsions of my brain, an intangible finger tickling until
• 27:19
  my skin crawled and my hair rose. Occasionally it paused with a firm pressure,
• 27:23
  And at this I saw bright flecks in the dark and heard a crackling
• 27:29
  like an electric current leaping a spark gap. Then suddenly connections were established.
• 27:33
  My mind and the spiders were all rappoor, and my memory was probed and
• 27:37
  read like an open book by the spider King. I felt a great loss
• 27:41
  of energy, as though my life forces were being sapped. Of what the
• 27:45
  King learned from me, I have very slight knowledge. In the light of
• 27:49
  later discoveries, I suppose that he obtained very concise information about the outer world,
• 27:55
  but only fragments of scenes leaked to me through the gray fog that shrouded
• 27:59
  my brain. Once I remember I was reading in a picture book, learning
• 28:03
  my alphabet under the guidance of an elder child. I had not seen or
• 28:07
  thought of that child before for years, but now her face, with all
• 28:11
  its freckles, was as clear before me as the book from which I read.
• 28:14
  Then the vision was wiped away, and again gray mists shut in.
• 28:18
  Next, I was walking the crowded streets of a city. I recognized Times
• 28:22
  Square in New York. I paused to speak to a friend that approached me.
• 28:26
  The meeting had taken place long ago, but I wonder if you can
• 28:29
  understand this. While we were conversing, I entertained the most cannibalistic thoughts.
• 28:33
  Literally, I regretted that I had not sprung at his throat and devoured that
• 28:36
  man. And he was one of the best friends that a man had ever
• 28:38
  had. I could not conceive how I missed such a wonderful opportunity, the
• 28:42
  rome for days and crowded cities, with wonderful food all about me, and
• 28:47
  never to feast when it could have been obtained so easily. Again, the
• 28:51
  fog closed, I realized that those thoughts had been not mine, but the
• 28:55
  spider kings. I was reading in a library, reading of people. Other
• 28:59
  people walked by me, sat beside me, brought me books. Such a
• 29:03
  wealth of delicious food in the outer world, Come, I shall go there.
• 29:07
  Never again shall I look with jaded eye upon my neighbor. He is
• 29:11
  sweet, he is dainty, he is nutritious. There is a peculiar savor
• 29:15
  about him that no other animal possesses. To the hunting grounds, then,
• 29:19
  where there is meat enough for all, But what do I say, and
• 29:22
  think? All is a lie. There are no people, no libraries,
• 29:26
  no books. There is nothing but a vast sea of clouds and spiraling vapors
• 29:30
  in which I float, a being smaller than the atom. There is a
• 29:33
  sound of many singing, a low and melancholy chant. If I can understand
• 29:37
  the words, I shall be free. Hush, let me listen closer.
• 29:41
  Now the song is nearer, a wild, unearthly chant. And now the
• 29:45
  voice is strengthened, and now the words are clear. And now I see
• 29:48
  a vast concourse of people with skins the hue of brass, and they float
• 29:53
  out from the mists, while outstretched our pleading hands, hands of men,
• 29:59
  and chubby baby hands, beautiful well kept hands of young and lovely women,
• 30:03
  and wrinkled, sallow hands of the very old, hands that point me out
• 30:07
  as I float lost in eddying vapors, hands that clinch and anger, hands
• 30:11
  that plead and entreat in a language of their own, while their owners sing
• 30:15
  words quite different. All the universe seems a tangled knot of hands that twist
• 30:21
  and twine, Oh God, And all the voices sing in tones of dolore
• 30:25
  and of woe. All the suns are impotent to succor us in a vast
• 30:30
  dungeon, barred with ever shafting rain, when a silent people of Spider's infamous
• 30:34
  have come to weave their filaments upon our brain. But the knotted hands and
• 30:40
  fingers, as they squirm and tangle, command with many voices, avengus,
• 30:44
  avengus, vengeance, and as I swear that I will, I break through
• 30:48
  the clinging mists and find myself upon the stone roof in the city of Spiders.
• 30:53
  With a start, I realized that the last vision had been given to
• 30:56
  me alone. The Spider King had no inkling of my command or of my
• 31:02
  acceptance. How did I know this? I cannot tell. I only knew
• 31:06
  its surety that I possessed one secret from my jailer's. It was dusk again
• 31:11
  from the western wall began to pour, the hunters driving their prey to the
• 31:15
  slaughtering grounds. The King carried me to the hut and dropped me in the
• 31:19
  trap closed. I had spent almost six hours in a trance, and I
• 31:22
  wondered what these beings had learned in that time, besides the scraps that I
• 31:27
  had retained. I felt empty, not only physically but mentally, as though
• 31:32
  all my cherished knowledge had been brutally stolen and nothing had been put in its
• 31:36
  place. But I ran over my memories and I seemed normal. It was
• 31:40
  a wild and uncanny experience. Outside was a pandemonium of shrieks and howls.
• 31:45
  The roar of some gigantic animal boomed close to my hut, and the wall
• 31:48
  trembled. The little Lagouoti crept out from under the runway and cuddled its head
• 31:53
  in my lap. It was shivering in an agony of terror. I stroked
• 31:57
  it, and it shuddered violently, but nudged closer. A strident clicking like
• 32:01
  locusts outside, and then again the eerie wail of a jaguar. It was
• 32:06
  filled with plaintive amazement, as though the beast could not credit what was happening
• 32:09
  to him. Ah, strike with your heavy paws, l Ti Gray,
• 32:14
  fight on, Oh mighty one. The master of the jungle at last has
• 32:17
  met his master, and el Ti Gray roams the forest never more. A
• 32:22
  long hiss and I knew that another of the valiant lizards was taking toll amongst
• 32:27
  his butchers. But there was no more hisses, so the sequel was plain.
• 32:32
  The dull roar of combat died away, leaving only isolated squeaks as a
• 32:36
  herd of wild pigs was brought down somewhere in the valley, and then nothing.
• 32:40
  For when a spiner dines, he does so quietly and without undue disturbance.
• 32:45
  A few minutes later, a large piece of meat was flung in.
• 32:47
  I did not inspect it too critically, but fell to at once. It
• 32:52
  was raw, of course, but I was ravenous, and a hungry man
• 32:53
  that has not eaten for nearly three days feels a surge of appetite for almost
• 32:58
  anything that seems fit for food. True, I had not killed the Yagooti,
• 33:02
  but I had been so feverish with my wound and the shock of my
• 33:05
  captivity that I had then no desire for food. I slept upon the days
• 33:09
  until a beam of moonlight struck through a chink and lay across my eyes.
• 33:14
  I began to worry about my chances for escape, until I could no longer
• 33:16
  rest. I went to the opening and looked out. It was a beautiful
• 33:21
  moonlit night. The valley, as far as I could see, was bare.
• 33:23
  It brought a plan into my head, and I tore down much of
• 33:27
  the clinging webs until I had exposed the lower foundations of the hut. As
• 33:30
  I expected, the large boulders were filled in by small stones. I worried
• 33:36
  some of these loose until I had opened a passageway large enough for a small
• 33:38
  man. But as I stooped to remove the last stone to little AGOUTI,
• 33:43
  seeing an opening to freedom, dashed past me and out upon the greensward.
• 33:46
  It had not gone ten feet from the hut when a black and silver ghost
• 33:50
  was after it, and when it doubled to return, several more heaped themselves
• 33:52
  upon it. Very quietly, I replaced the stones and wedged them tight.
• 33:57
  There was no hope of escape at night for me. Well, one can
• 34:00
  always sleep if his nerves are iron. And finally I dozed off, a
• 34:04
  philosophic prisoner five the farther vision. Each morning the spider king carried me to
• 34:12
  water, and each night I was fed. How I grew to loathe raw
• 34:15
  meat. How I yearned for green food, milk, and salt. Some
• 34:20
  nights I dreamed about salt, white mountains of it, which I walked over
• 34:23
  on snow shoes and slid down upon toboggans and skis. Every once in a
• 34:29
  while, reaching down and scooping up great handfuls of it, which I swallowed
• 34:31
  with relish. Often I awoke to find myself licking the palms of my hands
• 34:36
  to get what saline content I might out of the perspiration, and dreaming it
• 34:40
  was salt. Even now, I seasoned my food with salt to an extent
• 34:44
  that makes it impossible for anyone else to enjoy the meal, but myself.
• 34:47
  I grew thin, but my wound healed rapidly, and I had no more
• 34:51
  visions as wild as the first one. The day after my abortive attempt to
• 34:55
  escape, my mind was probed again. In all the lucid intervals, I
• 34:59
  remember, the only scenes I saw were of people, cities that swarmed like
• 35:02
  hives, villages of people in little isolated houses and cottages. How easy to
• 35:07
  storm one of those cottages, so far from any neighbor, How easy for
• 35:12
  that horror to conquer a small village, and, flushed with victory, to
• 35:15
  advance upon a city with all the spiders in the country flocking to our standard,
• 35:20
  perhaps even to wipe the continent clean of man, leaving this valley and
• 35:22
  establishing a rule elsewhere. And the night after that, unconscious revelation. I
• 35:29
  began to suspect I had just come from an interview with the king. As
• 35:32
  I satisfied my hunger, I tried to imagine the reasons that led him to
• 35:36
  learn of the outer world and to give me, in turn, glimpses of
• 35:38
  the past. For I had learned strange things which shall be revealed in their
• 35:43
  place. Why had he sampled my blood? Had they relished the flavor so
• 35:46
  different from the natives and were reserving me for an especial tidbit, or as
• 35:52
  a guide to places where more of my kind might be found. Now I
• 35:55
  come to a point where I must take care not to strain your credulity to
• 35:59
  its limit, For I have things to tell that have made me a pariah
• 36:01
  in the scientific world. I am the butt for the most idiotic and asenine
• 36:07
  jokes because I have told what I saw bald narrative, with no fancy trimming
• 36:10
  of mine to make it more acceptable. And this is the story of man's
• 36:14
  rise and fall, the story of the first reasoning being upon earth, the
• 36:19
  account of his inglorious servitude in the miraculous freak that saved you and me to
• 36:22
  day from being hewers of wood and drawers of water to an insect. I
• 36:28
  put my separate visions into short accounts, as each was given to me.
• 36:30
  For each vision holds within it a fact, as each nut a kernel,
• 36:35
  And if I made a connected story of the whole, it would be more
• 36:37
  incoherent than in the original form. There are blanks, but use your imagination
• 36:42
  to fill them. There may be faults of memory, but there is much
• 36:45
  that tallies with the facts we know. Upon the third day of my imprisonment,
• 36:49
  the king held communion with me alone. The other spiders of his species
• 36:52
  remained in their huts, apparently having learned from me all that he wished to
• 36:57
  know, or all that I could tell him. He opened a door for
• 36:59
  me to read the past and all the scenes which follow. A word of
• 37:02
  explanation is necessary. I was granted to peep into the past, it is
• 37:07
  true, but there were bounds over which I might not trespass. Often the
• 37:09
  gray mist closed between me and some enthralling picture that I longed desperately to see
• 37:15
  more of. I participated by proxy and battles, and was wounded, but
• 37:19
  never felt pain. I was present at scenes of the most frightful carnage,
• 37:22
  when the screams and groans of the dyeing, and the howls of the victors
• 37:25
  must have produced a deafening din But I heard no sounds. Is it that
• 37:30
  the mind cannot hold the memory of pain? I think so, Heart back,
• 37:35
  if you will, to the time when you suffered with a sprained ankle,
• 37:37
  a broken bone, or a toothache. You remember that you suffered,
• 37:40
  But the pain, in all its varying degrees, you cannot call back to
• 37:44
  say. At such a moment, I felt these sensations, But in regards
• 37:49
  to sounds, I believed that the sense of hearing and spiders is slight,
• 37:52
  and I doubt that these had ever possessed it at all. It seemed as
• 37:55
  though I was closeted within a small compartment. I watched a magic pan rama
• 38:00
  that unreeled before my eyes as a motion picture operator might observe the screen from
• 38:04
  his projection booth. Then the reel would end, the lights fade, and
• 38:07
  all my whirl became a whirling fog. These, then, are the discoveries
• 38:12
  that I made, and the facts that I learned from them. As I
• 38:15
  beheld the most marvelous drama that it has ever been given a man to witness.
• 38:20
  I stood by the shore of a stagnant lake, which was covered with
• 38:22
  a thick, slimy growth that undulated with oily ripples, as though some great
• 38:25
  animal moved beneath it, for there was no wind. To my right,
• 38:30
  the ground was carpeted with a lush growth of coarse vegetation, over which danced
• 38:34
  a maze of insects. I saw dragonflies, whose gauzy wings would measure several
• 38:38
  feet from tip to tip, whirl and mimic battle. A procession of gigantic
• 38:43
  ants near sightedly wove their tortuous path among the thick clumps of mushrooms that studded
• 38:47
  the fern forest, like varicolored jewels embedded in dark green plush. Above me,
• 38:52
  a dome of clouds was spread that marched from left to right, drizzling
• 38:57
  a fine mist as they passed. No sun or moved une was visible,
• 39:00
  but a soft, lambent light shone through the clouds, diffused by the mist,
• 39:05
  so that the landscape was well illuminated. A multitude of living creatures swarmed
• 39:08
  in the skies, but as far as I could see, there moved no
• 39:12
  mammalian life as we know it. A thing that I took for a vulture
• 39:15
  hovering high, dropped and became, on closer inspection, a huge wasp that
• 39:20
  darted down into the ferns and rose with a kicking insect in its claws,
• 39:23
  darting swiftly across the lake. All life seemed to be represented by insects.
• 39:29
  It seemed as though I was called, although I heard no sound. I
• 39:31
  turned to behold a like scene to that I had been watching. A stone
• 39:36
  pier projected out above the slimy liquid. From this platform a path wound into
• 39:39
  the shrubbery. This I expectantly watched, waiting for the one who had signaled
• 39:45
  to come in sight. Presently, the ferns swayed and a huge bulk lumbered
• 39:49
  down to the pier. It was an immense spider, similar in size to
• 39:52
  the King, but it was a dull, brown and hairless, its skin
• 39:55
  as thick and tough as soul, leather and oozing moisture. Not surprised by
• 40:00
  the sight, for I had expected this, and I knew, with calm
• 40:04
  acceptance of the most amazing facts that we meet only in dreams, that I
• 40:07
  was also a spider, or at least looking through the eyes of one.
• 40:10
  For a time I understood, or rather my control understood, for this took
• 40:15
  place long long ago that I was to follow, and we two started along
• 40:19
  the path. Once we stopped to allow an army of ants similar to driver
• 40:22
  ants to cross our route. We were unseen by them, so that they
• 40:25
  passed on, devouring everything that lay before them, and leaving a wide swath
• 40:30
  of desolation bare of any living thing. A short time after this, we
• 40:34
  came on a wide plain that hummed with activity. Spiders of all types were
• 40:37
  there, hustling to and fro herding beasts before them in small bands toward a
• 40:43
  large stockade that was built of stone. One of these bands had stopped,
• 40:46
  and a hubbub was taking place. As we neared this commotion, I saw
• 40:51
  that these beasts were sometimes standing erect, and sometimes upon all fours. And
• 40:54
  coming closer still, I beheld that their skins were white, and that they
• 40:58
  were men, men, I say, but not as men are now.
• 41:01
  Their faces were dull and stupid. Their bodies were grossly fat, and like
• 41:05
  sheep, they crowded together for mutual protection. A very few were thin and
• 41:09
  wiry, more energetic than the others, and more daring. These few were
• 41:14
  leaving their own bands and were clustering about the scene of trouble, only to
• 41:16
  be forced back by a guard of small spiders like the black and Silver fellows,
• 41:21
  but these guards were almost hairless, having only the yellow crest of fur
• 41:24
  that denoted their rank. There were many of the rulers packed into a knot,
• 41:29
  which disintegrated as I came up, and I saw that the center of
• 41:31
  the disturbance was a man. Quickly the situation was explained to me, and
• 41:37
  I gathered that the slave had killed a spider. At my order, he
• 41:39
  was seized and we returned to the lake, followed by most of the spiders
• 41:43
  and all of the men. He was forced to walk out upon the stone
• 41:45
  pier, and as he did so, the surface of the liquid began to
• 41:49
  eddy fiercely. He came nearer, and the slime rose and lapped the surface
• 41:52
  of the pier. Then he turned to run back, but already the mucilogenous
• 41:57
  liquid had him thickly by the feet. Slowly it crawled up his knees,
• 42:00
  his thighs, and chest, while his mouth gasped wide for air or with
• 42:05
  a cry that I could not hear. Then the sticky slime retreated into the
• 42:08
  lake and with it went the slave. Thus were offenders against the Spider's law,
• 42:14
  punished for an object lessened to the rest. The mob trooped back into
• 42:17
  the forest, And as I marched, I pondered upon my surroundings. This
• 42:22
  was clearly a younger world than mine. An inner voice began to explain that
• 42:25
  this was a past, unthinkably remote, a period of time when the equator
• 42:30
  and the temperate zones were still in a state of flux, when the Equator
• 42:34
  was one roaring belt of volcanoes that belched lava and ashes into the hissing seas
• 42:38
  that rose and steamed to obscure half the world in clouds. Countless eons would
• 42:44
  yet elapse before Atlantis and its sister continent move would be raised from the oceans
• 42:49
  to breed a civilization upon each, and then to sink again, the one
• 42:52
  beneath the blue waters of the Pacific and the other in the ocean which bears
• 42:55
  its name. But while the rest of the world was unfit for life,
• 43:00
  at the tropical polar countries, the earth was cool enough to support vegetation in
• 43:04
  abundance. And where vegetation is creatures will be found to live upon it.
• 43:07
  Here, as the different species commenced the race for supremacy. The insects forged
• 43:12
  ahead, the spiders, being the most intelligent and safe, man the most
• 43:15
  savage, had become the dominant reasoning beings of the globe. Man arising later,
• 43:21
  was bred for food, and his spirit broken. But now and again
• 43:23
  one rose and struck back. With the results I had seen the voice died
• 43:28
  away, and as I marched, I thought that it was something, after
• 43:30
  all, that a man dared to rebel. At any rate, he was
• 43:34
  not fully conquered, And at this thought it seemed as though I had learned
• 43:37
  my lesson from the episode. The misty clouds lowered and shrouded me in gray,
• 43:42
  and with a great roaring in my ears, I passed from that era.
• 43:45
  I stood upon a mountain that overlooked a dreadful chasm. A fierce gale
• 43:49
  was sweeping along the heights, and there were no clouds in the sky.
• 43:52
  Around me were grouped several of the rulers, shivering in the wind, their
• 43:55
  hides but little protection against the cold. The air was no long longer warm
• 44:00
  and sticky, and I knew that we were seeking a warmer climate. To
• 44:04
  my left, at the foot of the mountain, there was a plain that
• 44:07
  was swarming with the beast men, all converging toward the ravine, with a
• 44:10
  multitude of spiders hurting them on. Thus far we had come unhindered on our
• 44:15
  march from the cooling pole, but a mountain range across our path had barred
• 44:19
  our progress until we had discovered a way to pass through. On the other
• 44:22
  side of the range, dwelt a nation of men that had never known the
• 44:24
  spider's rule, tall and slim and of noble aspect, a budding civilization that
• 44:29
  we obliterated from existence. This nation was formed of many small cities, built
• 44:34
  of stone and wood, and walled in for protection against the beasts and other
• 44:37
  men more savage than beasts, as they are at this day. They probably
• 44:42
  had some commerce with one another, some trade, some slight banding together against
• 44:45
  a common foe. But we spiders learned little of their life. Where we
• 44:49
  smashed that nation and fed upon its people. But I anticipate there was fighting
• 44:53
  in the chasm. A small troop of brass hued men armed with spears and
• 44:58
  slings were bitterly contested the advance of our armies. The pass was glutted with
• 45:02
  bodies forced on by the pressure of the masses behind, who in turn were
• 45:06
  forced on by the spiders. Timid and weak as were our slaves, by
• 45:10
  their very numbers, they were a power to reckon with, and though they
• 45:14
  feared the men that held the pass, they dreaded the spiders. More.
• 45:17
  Gradually they were winning, though from our height we could see that the brass
• 45:22
  faced defenders were striking weaker blows. They were whittling away the head of the
• 45:27
  column still, But for every man that fell to spring into his place,
• 45:30
  there were dead in that crowd that had been slain at the beginning of the
• 45:34
  battle, and were standing erect in the press, heads idiotically lolling from side
• 45:38
  to side, unable to fall. We moved along the mountain side, keeping
• 45:43
  the fighting between us. The ravine began to widen, and our enemy had
• 45:46
  a greater front to cover, giving our beast men an advantage which they speedily
• 45:51
  took. Now came a hungry horde of spiders swooping past me down the mountain,
• 45:54
  that flung themselves upon the wary defenders of the pass and over their bodies.
• 46:00
  The beast men rushed in mad scramble from the monsters that crowded them,
• 46:02
  on my band followed down the mountain wall and came finally to the new land
• 46:07
  of promise. Beyond the entrance to the pass, a walled city stood,
• 46:12
  gates barred and parapets, manned with warriors that pelted our masses with stones and
• 46:16
  sleeting flights of arrows. But while the clumsy slaves scattered on the plain,
• 46:21
  we spiders, with grim resolve, scaled the walls, which offered no barrier
• 46:24
  to our taloned limbs. The brass hued men fought bravely, but we mastered
• 46:30
  them, and the city was ours. About a mile away, another city
• 46:32
  was beleered, and as the spiders rose along the wall, smoke began to
• 46:37
  rise from the huts within an ever increasing abundance. The people, in despair
• 46:42
  had fired their homes in sad preference for the fiery death to the worse fate
• 46:46
  that awaited them. The grass thatched roofs made a roaring hell of the city,
• 46:51
  and the spiders were driven back. Now farther upon the plane, another
• 46:54
  pillar of smoke began to rise, and then a third, until all the
• 46:58
  cities had followed the examples by their brave countrymen, and as a nation,
• 47:01
  the brass Hued race perished in the ruins of their homes. So it was
• 47:07
  that sorrow crossed the mountains, and there was weeping and wailing in the land.
• 47:10
  I stood again before the spider king, through whose memory I had searched
• 47:15
  the past, as through mine he had explored the present. The blood began
• 47:19
  to circulate through my numbed limbs, prickling like a thousand needles. I felt
• 47:22
  as though I had traveled far. My guards carried me to the dungeon,
• 47:27
  dropped in a shoulder of venison, left me alone. I fell upon the
• 47:30
  raw meat, wolfing it down in great mouthfuls, And as I ravenously satisfied
• 47:34
  my hunger, I tried to imagine the reasons that led the king to learn
• 47:37
  of the outer world and to give me, in turn, glimpses of the
• 47:39
  past. Clearly this was his method of relating his people's history. But why
• 47:44
  trouble himself at all? Why not slay me as he had the natives.
• 47:46
  I could only decide that I was being reserved for a guide to the outer
• 47:50
  world. They had relished the taste of my blood. On pondering over the
• 47:53
  visions, I recognized the chant of the brass hewed people to be a quotation
• 47:58
  from one of the poems of Baudelaire. But in the age when those beings
• 48:00
  fought the Spider's unthinkable, periods of time would yet elapse before men began to
• 48:05
  dream of rhyme. I eventually had reached the conclusion that if I had seen
• 48:09
  a vision and made a promise, the impression that the pleading voices had desired
• 48:13
  to convey to me struck a chord in my subconscious mind that nearly equaled that
• 48:17
  eerie verse, so that, in semi stupor, I fancied they chanted in
• 48:22
  the words of the French poet. I still believed that my theory is correct,
• 48:25
  but I wonder often what they really did say. The vision was so
• 48:30
  very real, I decided that each episode took place in the life of a
• 48:34
  different spider, and by the clearness of each vision, it would seem to
• 48:37
  indicate that the Spider King recalled the incidents in his various reincarnations, or that,
• 48:42
  lacking the written word to preserve history, this race had developed the ability
• 48:45
  of storing facts in their brain cells that were passed from one generation to another,
• 48:49
  as physical attributes sometimes are with men. In all of these glimpses I
• 48:53
  saw as a spider. I thought as a spider, I looked upon men
• 48:57
  as beasts of burden, created for the well being of the spider people,
• 49:00
  an unclean, miserable race, but necessary for our slaves. Thus they lifted
• 49:06
  themselves to a dangerous pinnacle upon a foundation of sand, by depending so much
• 49:09
  upon a lower race of beings for their own existence. History is full of
• 49:14
  such errors. For look you, Your slave revolts or dies with nothing to
• 49:19
  lose and all to gain. And if he succeeds, where are the rulers?
• 49:22
  Then if he fails, progress has stopped or has been delayed. But
• 49:25
  it is the overlords that bear the expense, not the slaves. They can
• 49:30
  but die, and a dead or crippled slave is not of much value.
• 49:32
  Steadily, after the smashing of this polar race, the breeds deteriorated. Civilization
• 49:37
  came to a halt for ages, and began to retrogress. This was the
• 49:40
  true dark age for mankind, the faint dim remembrance of which is persisted in
• 49:45
  the myth of the Garden of Eden and the driving force of Adam and Eve,
• 49:47
  a primeval people into the wilderness. All that save the world to day
• 49:52
  from being ruled by spiders is the unknown cataclysm that caused the First Ice Age,
• 49:55
  when the world grew cold and the glaciers ground down from the north.
• 50:00
  The spiders died in the cold, being a tropical race, and only those
• 50:02
  that could adapt themselves to the changing conditions, growing warm coats of hair and
• 50:07
  becoming smaller and more lively, you continued to exist. Perhaps you can imagine
• 50:12
  the antiquity of this period of change when you realize that all fossil spiders,
• 50:16
  or those preserved in amber that have yet been found, are the same size
• 50:20
  as those we know to day. As they become smaller, some of the
• 50:23
  larger types persisted as freaks, still the rulers, but gradually losing their hold
• 50:28
  on man. Here follows the story of the Great Migration. Six before the
• 50:34
  cave Men. I was allowed to rest a day without seeing the king,
• 50:37
  and the next morning I was brought forth and commenced the last series of visions.
• 50:42
  The first scene apparently taking place many years after the taking of this city.
• 50:45
  A slash of purple light cleft the vapory haze, and it rolled back
• 50:49
  before me as a curtain rises out of play. I was on the roof
• 50:52
  of the central tower in the city, the sun beating down with but little
• 50:55
  warmth. It had lost a third of its former size and brilliance. The
• 51:00
  spider through whose eyes I looked, moved nearer to the edge and stood staring
• 51:04
  out over the city. The roofs were covered with snow. A bank of
• 51:07
  heavy clouds was gathering to the left of the observatory, and the scene was
• 51:10
  dismal in the extreme. The palm trees that originally had appeared at the taking
• 51:15
  of the city were gone, and in their places were gnarled, stunted willows,
• 51:20
  whose bare limbs clattered like a skeleton's arms in the wind. Below,
• 51:23
  a procession was forming. A new breed of spiders had arisen, half the
• 51:28
  size of the conquerors. They were covered thickly with hair, their faces,
• 51:32
  which were turned toward my towers, though in expectancy, portrayed the savageness of
• 51:37
  fiends. Scattered thinly among the multitude were larger spiders of the ancient type,
• 51:42
  either throwbacks or survivals of the original rulers. Here and there sat bands of
• 51:46
  men, low browed, hairy, and brutalized to such had the human race
• 51:51
  retrogressed. There were beasts of burden. And these were also men that tottered
• 51:57
  beneath their loads of coarse vegetation and tinder for their own sustenance on the march,
• 52:01
  For this was an emigration to seek a warmer climate, and the city
• 52:05
  was being deserted. Climbing up the sheer wall came a large spider as large
• 52:09
  as myself, that stood beside me in silent communion of mines. I gathered
• 52:14
  the impression that all was ready, and they waited only for me. I
• 52:17
  followed my friend into the street. My control shivered, and I knew it
• 52:21
  was bitter cold. We took places at the head of the column and commenced
• 52:24
  the hegira. At the city gates, we stopped and looked back for the
• 52:28
  last time. The clouds covered the sky. The city was drab and deserted.
• 52:31
  We must have been the last, or nearly the last expedition to leave.
• 52:35
  A white flake floated by my eyes. The pinnacles of the tower were
• 52:38
  dull as lead. I swung into my stride. The slaves lurched on.
• 52:43
  Man and his master were on the march, and over all the snow was
• 52:46
  gently falling. It was night over my head. The stars gleamed, resplendent.
• 52:52
  Countless eons had passed, for the sky showed familiar forms. The pole
• 52:55
  star was the one we had always known, but in a former vision had
• 53:00
  not been polaris. I was some form of century, for I was walking
• 53:04
  a regular beat around a natural valley, accompanied by a troop of guards.
• 53:07
  All along my path slept the great spiders, who still wielded the whip of
• 53:10
  power. In the valley, were pinned a savage tribe of men, short
• 53:15
  and hairy and bandy legged, whose language was composed mainly of signs and hoard
• 53:20
  grimaces. I knew that our control was slipping, for it was against these
• 53:23
  that I guarded my comrades's sleep. The day before, the slaves had arisen
• 53:28
  and fled to the forests, many escaping from the horde of small spiders that
• 53:30
  rulers had perished in a fight, and had pursued them several of them.
• 53:36
  We decided to move again. This was the last watch. Soon the horizon
• 53:40
  flushed ruddy with the rising sun, and the business of the day began.
• 53:45
  From the thickets came all that were left of the gigantic spiders. We allowed
• 53:47
  the guard to release the slaves and after they had gathered their positions, we
• 53:52
  traveled along the sandy shore. The spiders kept the rear as the men shambled
• 53:55
  along, heads swinging from side to side as they peered viciously for some of
• 54:00
  a game in the sand. Ice floes drifted in the bellows, grinding against
• 54:04
  the cliffs that we were nearing. Suddenly, the men sniffed like dogs as
• 54:07
  they caught a scent, and we saw great tracks in the sand. They
• 54:10
  started off in a wide circle that finally led us to the foot of a
• 54:14
  tremendous glacier, where our game turned to face us. It was a hairy
• 54:17
  mammoth, his tusks curving like hoops, the points a little below the eyes.
• 54:22
  The men surged about him, throwing spears and stones, and a multitude
• 54:25
  of small spiders swarmed over him, until the great beast was a heap of
• 54:30
  vermin, and its sides ran blood like a falling mountain. He crashed to
• 54:34
  earth, raining spiders that leaped for safety, and we rulers, careful as
• 54:37
  usual of ourselves, advanced to the feast. As from a distance we watched
• 54:42
  the smaller spiders feasting and the slaves resting near the glacier cliff on the thin
• 54:45
  strip of beach they separated them from the sea. Suddenly a lump of ice
• 54:50
  drops, splintering from the sky, and following with quick descent, came others.
• 54:53
  Then between us and the men roared an avalanche of ice boulders, raising
• 54:58
  a barrier unclimbable. We dashed, scattering to the land, and behind us
• 55:02
  the beach was black with spiders, pouring a mighty river racing for life before
• 55:07
  the advancing glacier, grinding the rocks to powder beneath it as a fissure rented
• 55:10
  along a mile long front, And as we looked back we saw that long,
• 55:15
  quiet torrent of ice and motion at last, For as a shot or
• 55:17
  a whoop is sufficient to start an avalanche of snow and menacing charge, and
• 55:22
  men frown upon one who whistles or sings beneath the snowy slope of the Alps.
• 55:27
  So the titanic thud of the mammoth's fall, the earth shaking crash of
• 55:30
  his sudden death, had startled the glacier into nervous sleep, and now separated
• 55:36
  from the parent body of ice, the mighty cliff towered toppling towards the sea
• 55:40
  and moved ponderously, staggering like a drunken world, crowding the slaves and pounding
• 55:45
  thinner the ribbon. The men panted so far behind us as we gained the
• 55:51
  outside rim that they were cut off. Madly, they tore back and forth
• 55:54
  along the ever narrowing beach, some swimming in the icy water, some falling
• 55:59
  upon their spears, superstitions, dread of the devils of the sea, whose
• 56:01
  fins cut the waves as they feasted on the bodies of our slaves. Then
• 56:06
  the glacier moved inevitably on entering the water, and the face thundered down with
• 56:10
  a splash that sent a wave lapping against our feet. Titanic icebergs floated in
• 56:15
  the tossing sea, monuments to the last of our slaves. That marked the
• 56:20
  resting place of the remnants of the brass hued race. No more slaves,
• 56:24
  no more civilization for the spiders. Hereafter we would hunt our own food,
• 56:29
  fight our own battles, build our own shelters, becoming more savage and more
• 56:32
  tiny with the years, until we were tolerated parasites in the palaces of men.
• 56:37
  Our destiny was that we should clear the filth and pests from the homes
• 56:40
  of an upstart, minor inferior race of men. But still that time was
• 56:45
  far in the future. Then followed many snap shots of the past, so
• 56:49
  that I followed in quick glimpses the fate of that wandering, deteriorating band of
• 56:52
  spiders, whose ancestors had conquered a world. Driven by the ever advancing cold,
• 56:58
  they traveled south, deserted always by bands that stayed behind, while the
• 57:01
  main body kept on. Always it was the smallest that lagged behind, the
• 57:06
  fiercest, the ugliest, the least intelligent. It is there progeny that spins
• 57:10
  the webs in forest, farm and field, and in the end comes to
• 57:14
  inherit the proudest edifices of humanity. As the years were left behind us,
• 57:17
  our numbers decreased, until from millions we'd become thousands. Our rulers could be
• 57:22
  numbered by hundreds. From time to time we met other bands, some with
• 57:27
  slaves, but most without. Often we fought with these, for the years
• 57:30
  had made such differences in the species that we could no longer understand our fellow
• 57:35
  invaders. We saw brutal tribes of men armed with stone hatchets and clubs who
• 57:38
  gave us a wide berth. These were not the descendants of the polar race,
• 57:43
  but had evolved separately. We saw others yet to evolve in great apes,
• 57:46
  semi arboreal, that were beginning to learn the possibilities that lay in the
• 57:51
  human thumb for grasping tools. But we passed on our numbers dwindling. Ever,
• 57:57
  skirted volcanoes that thundered at us, and slew many, fought through the
• 58:00
  terrible storms of that time, smashed by the pitiless hail, buried by avalanches,
• 58:05
  and at last found peace those that were left of us in the primeval
• 58:08
  jungles, where no glaciers could ever reach, And here we made a home.
• 58:13
  We built houses with the aid of savages that roamed where we had determined
• 58:15
  to settle, and fed upon their bodies. Afterward, we established the rings
• 58:21
  of different species of spiders about our central community, and about a hundred of
• 58:25
  our rulers all that remained to carry on the race. And here, in
• 58:30
  the heart of the steaming forests, we dwelt no more of our progeny being
• 58:34
  born, for our age was great, But as our numbers decreased by natural
• 58:37
  deaths, and the years gave us an infernal cunning. Our ambition rose to
• 58:42
  the point where we had almost decided to move again. But what lay outside
• 58:45
  our home? That was the question which gave us pause. Should we again
• 58:49
  brave the crunching glaciers and the bellowing volcanoes. But if the glaciers had fought
• 58:53
  the volcanoes and had been destroyed, than perhaps there were men again, Not
• 58:58
  the tough and unsavory savages that our hunters sometimes brought in, but large,
• 59:02
  fat and toothsome light colored brutes that we could again rear in herds. And
• 59:07
  perhaps with the new food would be found others of our race, so that,
• 59:12
  with their strength and our cunning centuries and development, we should win to
• 59:15
  undreamed of heights, as under our crafty leadership, our smaller spiders, less
• 59:21
  intelligent than their forebears, conquered for us a world. At the next glimpse,
• 59:25
  there were only sixty or seventy of the rulers, the males predominating,
• 59:30
  And as the years went on, this little band became less, until at
• 59:34
  my last vision I opened the trap of my hut, and only seven of
• 59:37
  my fellows were to be seen on their roofs as we watched a herd of
• 59:40
  animals gathered for the evening feast, among them being brown naked men and a
• 59:45
  peculiar white faced man covered with a strange hide, the like of which I
• 59:50
  had never seen before, and whom I intended to dine upon. I Jabez
• 59:55
  penttreat, looked out through the eyes of the spider king, and saw my
• 1:00:00
  self standing as I remembered I had stood days before, as I had waited
• 1:00:04
  for the great spiders to pounce down from the roofs. And at this unbelievable
• 1:00:07
  sight, the curtain of gauze shut down, and I realized I was at
• 1:00:12
  the end of the road. This is the only proof I have that my
• 1:00:15
  story is true. Seven the city and the smoke. Three days later,
• 1:00:21
  being fully cured of my wound, I was again brought from the prison.
• 1:00:24
  The spiders were waiting. The valley was a crawl with vermin, whose dry
• 1:00:29
  rustling filled the air with whispers. Yellow headed guards surrounded the huts. Gray
• 1:00:34
  devils mingled with the scarlet barred insects. Huge black, leaping tarantulas were present
• 1:00:38
  in great numbers. But in all that crowd I saw not a single insect
• 1:00:42
  whose bite is not poisonous to man. The spider King, in his silent
• 1:00:45
  communication, made it understood to me that my life depended upon my ability to
• 1:00:50
  guide them to the nearest community of whites, and I consented readily. Who
• 1:00:54
  would not have done the same? I intended to lead them to the river
• 1:00:58
  and take my chances of a sks there, knowing that they were as careful
• 1:01:00
  as cats about entering water. For although the King had promised me my life,
• 1:01:05
  I had but little faith in the promise. So on the eighth day
• 1:01:08
  of my captivity, we set out to the conquering of an unsuspecting continent.
• 1:01:13
  I walked in the center of the huge ruler's formation. About us rustled an
• 1:01:17
  impossible troop of guards, and for miles on each side the forest was filled
• 1:01:22
  with our mirror mid ons scattered far and wide. How I feasted on fruit
• 1:01:25
  that day. As we passed the small brook at Tombo number ten, I
• 1:01:30
  caught some small fish and ate them raw. And no epicure ever tasted anything
• 1:01:34
  more delicious than that meal was to me. The drums growled again that night
• 1:01:38
  as I lay in the midst of the light sleeping horde that quivered angrily at
• 1:01:43
  my slightest movement. It took me, urged on by the spiders, only
• 1:01:46
  seven days to cover the distance that I had taken ten to accomplish. Coming
• 1:01:51
  in toward night, we began to hear the roar of the Coroni River as
• 1:01:54
  it struggled through a redol were rapid on its way to the Orinoco. Only
• 1:02:00
  about a mile ahead. There burst out a pandemonium of frightful screams that I
• 1:02:02
  recognized as humans voicing inhuman terror. The great brutes scuttled on faster, so
• 1:02:07
  that I was hard put to keep my place. Clouds of smoke rolled up
• 1:02:12
  ahead of us from a camp fire, and presently we broke out of the
• 1:02:15
  forest and saw the flames. A tribe of ugly natives were trapped by the
• 1:02:19
  river, where they had made camp in a clearing, building their fire on
• 1:02:22
  a sandy spot. Around them, the tall reed like grass shoulder high to
• 1:02:25
  a tall man, waved and shuddered and bent low with the rush of the
• 1:02:29
  spider army. The men had been surrounded and held until the arrival of the
• 1:02:32
  king, and as we came up, I recognized their paint and tribal marks
• 1:02:36
  to be those of the Guaharibo Indians, savage men who slay for the love
• 1:02:40
  of murder, and who had roved from their home near the upper reaches of
• 1:02:43
  the Orinoco, searching for heads and loot. Many heads hung in the smoke,
• 1:02:47
  partly cured, and several of them were white. At this sight,
• 1:02:52
  something turned to steal with me, and had it been possible to save them,
• 1:02:54
  I would not if I could. I said to the king, these
• 1:02:58
  are the first. Nderstood my meaning, if not my words, and gave
• 1:03:01
  the signal for the attack. A great wave of spiders broke over the savages,
• 1:03:07
  clicking their battle cry, leaping from one to another, darting through the
• 1:03:10
  smoke. Seized with the madness of slaughter. The spider king and his fellows,
• 1:03:14
  to whom this was a joy they had probably been long without. Charged
• 1:03:17
  with the rest. In a second, I was forgotten and absolutely alone,
• 1:03:22
  Dazed by the marvel of it. I was yet not too blind to seize
• 1:03:24
  my opportunity quickly. Yet with the utmost care, I crept toward the river,
• 1:03:29
  where the log canoes were drawn up on the shore, and pushed all
• 1:03:31
  off but one. Still, the battle raged. As I put one foot
• 1:03:36
  inside the canoe, something gave me pause again. I heard the despairing,
• 1:03:39
  pleading cries of the brass faced people, and saw those writhing hands that swore
• 1:03:44
  me to vengeance. Stealthily, I crawled back to the fire, gathered an
• 1:03:47
  armful of resinous light wood, and with a burning brand trailing behind me,
• 1:03:52
  set the grass of flame as I ran to the canoe. I paddled up
• 1:03:54
  stream to where the forest joined the clearing, and beached the canoe. The
• 1:03:59
  wind was blowing strongly downstream. With my torch, I lit stick after stick
• 1:04:02
  and hurled the flaming wood far out into the field. Then I drifted down
• 1:04:06
  and held my position in midstream and waited. The battle was almost to its
• 1:04:11
  inevitable end. The fire that I had first lit was burning stubbornly into the
• 1:04:15
  teeth of the wind, and now fan to fury. A fifteen foot wall
• 1:04:17
  of flame came down with a whirring roar. To meet it. The fighting
• 1:04:21
  stopped. Man and spider both were doomed, and from both sides the fire
• 1:04:26
  closed in. I yelled in joy, howling crazy, broken curses. Strange,
• 1:04:30
  how much it looked like a great city in the smoke, with flaming
• 1:04:33
  sputtering sheets of fire that lapped its phantom walls. From that whirlwind of sparks
• 1:04:39
  came a vast sound of frying. I heard a bursting mutter, like gigantic
• 1:04:44
  kernels of corn popping an enormous pan. A wave of sooty smoke, redolent
• 1:04:48
  of burned flesh rolled out over the river and set me blind and coughing.
• 1:04:54
  As I wiped my streaming eyes, a horrid thing staggered from the flames,
• 1:04:59
  little spikes fire shooting from its bat and bloated body. Although his hair was
• 1:05:03
  burned away and his mandibles were gone, I recognized the spider king. He
• 1:05:08
  lurched nearer, and I saw that he was blind, just as his charred
• 1:05:11
  legs snapped with his weight, and he subsided into the river. The water
• 1:05:15
  boiled and hissed when he struck it. Once he rose, lashing feebly,
• 1:05:18
  and now beheld that his body was swarming with little fish that rent and tore
• 1:05:23
  pieces of flesh away. These were the savage little piranhas, the miniature fresh
• 1:05:29
  water sharks that give short shrift to anything that falls within a school of them.
• 1:05:32
  Again, he came to the surface. The water frothed a bloody foam,
• 1:05:36
  and then the last of the monster sank in tatters into the Coroni.
• 1:05:41
  Not many of the others escaped. After the fire had swept into the forest,
• 1:05:45
  I saw that the ground was black with charred bodies that lay in tumbled
• 1:05:48
  heaps around the skeletons of the Guaharibos. By easy stages, I made my
• 1:05:53
  way to civilization, bearing a stupendous tail. To my friends, I told
• 1:05:58
  them my story and set in substance. While you have been wasting your time
• 1:06:01
  for hundreds of years, searching back through the ages with pick and shovels,
• 1:06:04
  scrabbling in the dust of forgotten empires, with arduous sifting of myths and legends
• 1:06:10
  to find some small fact, with titanic efforts of geological, biological and philological
• 1:06:15
  research to bring the past nearer. The link that could tell you all you
• 1:06:18
  wish to know is hunting flies and the rafters of your own houses. Apply
• 1:06:23
  yourselves therefore to the means of wresting the secret from it, for you can
• 1:06:27
  learn both of this and other lands more than by your explorations. They laughed,
• 1:06:30
  as I expected they would, he concluded bitterly. As he finished,
• 1:06:36
  we were passing into Waltham, and we began locating our luggage for we had
• 1:06:40
  only a few more miles to travel, then is the train near Boston.
• 1:06:44
  He resumed the original cause of our discussion, upon the word hate of uncertain
• 1:06:47
  usage. So while you feel repulsion he began and a sickened disgust at the
• 1:06:55
  sight of a spider, it is because the hereditary subconscious memory knows that these
• 1:07:00
  creatures were want your lords in another existence, and it commands you to obliterate
• 1:07:03
  this loathsome alien life from another age. When you crush that barn spider under
• 1:07:09
  your foot, you unconsciously took revenge for unaccounted eras of oppression that has made
• 1:07:14
  such a mark on the human brain that forever and ever most men will sicken
• 1:07:16
  at the sight of a spider. You are repelled without understanding the reason for
• 1:07:20
  your dislike. But I I hate them, for I know what they are,
• 1:07:26
  a fact which no other man alive is certain of. All spiders that
• 1:07:30
  I come in contact with now are attracted to me. I enter a room,
• 1:07:33
  for instance, there is not the sign of a web about. My
• 1:07:36
  hostess would swear that the house is spotless. But if there is a spider,
• 1:07:41
  it feels my presence somehow, and before I leave, I may find
• 1:07:44
  one perched upon my shoe or near me, steadily gazing with its beady black
• 1:07:47
  eyes. I hate them, but I have not the fear which you mistakenly
• 1:07:53
  call hatred. I am going to search for carew and we you will search
• 1:07:57
  for that polar country where the brass hwed men lived, and may even find
• 1:08:00
  a frozen or fossil spider that will prove that I did not lie to my
• 1:08:03
  fellows scientists. But until that day, I tell my story to no more
• 1:08:08
  scoffers. Nor should I have told you if I had not wish to see
• 1:08:11
  how a layman received the theory that all my contemporaries have rejected. What Boston
• 1:08:16
  so soon he ejaculated as we pulled into the North Station. I hope I
• 1:08:21
  have not bored you. Indeed you have not, mister pintreat, I answered,
• 1:08:26
  with a smile. I wish you good fortune in your search, and
• 1:08:29
  I extended my hand. Thank you. I shall need it, he said,
• 1:08:32
  gruffly, and wringing my hand. He stepped into the crowd, and
• 1:08:35
  I saw my last of the man with the beady eyes. I shall not
• 1:08:40
  include this in my novel, nor shall I change his version of affairs.
• 1:08:43
  It is an amazing theory at least, and if it were proved, it
• 1:08:45
  would cause Havoc to cherished opinions. But if he goes to find his lost
• 1:08:48
  city in the north, he goes alone. For I read that Sir Adlington
• 1:08:53
  Carew has disappeared into the jungles of Africa's west coast, and as his experiments
• 1:08:58
  dealt with great apes and lunatics, I do not think he will be back.
• 1:09:00
  Well, you have read the story, I give you fair warning that
• 1:09:04
  I don't believe it myself. His eyes were just a wee bit too bright.
• 1:09:11
  End of section two The City of Spiders by H. Warner Munn