Latest / Weird Tales Presents: Web of the Spider! / The Left Eye by Henry S. Whitehead

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The Left Eye by Henry S. Whitehead · Weird Tales Presents: Web of the Spider!

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Section ten of Weird Tales presents Webb 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 Benjamin harton Weird Tales
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presents Webb of the Spider left eye left eye by Henry S. Whitehead.
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The spider was as large as a prize peach with great waving metal like mandibles.
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Pierre Goddard was a French Canadian by descent, whose grandfather had departed the
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perelus of Montreal for the good of his miserable hide in the days of Rale's
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rebellion and settled in that indefinite area of scanty, soiled farmland along the western
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shore of Lake Champlain between Keyesville and Plattsburgh. The degenerate stock of the Goddards,
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long impoverished since the era of its plebeian origins in France, did not
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recover in the descendants of the original fugitive. Pierre the grandson combined in his
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make up the native custness of the lower class Canuck with the skin flint qualities
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which his lifelong residence among the narrow minded yokels with whom he consorted had readily
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imparted, shiftless, furtive, mean souled. He eked out an existence on
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his few barren acres of poor land, which was endurable only because there was
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neither in his heredity nor his experience, any better standard by which he could
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realize to the full the utter meanness of everything that conspired to make up his
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life's record. At nineteen, Pierre had married Katie Burton, a flat chested,
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swallow faced slattern of his own age, at the end of five years
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of sordid married life. Four brats of their beginning littered up the dirty kitchen
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of Pierre's cabin through the long cold days of the northern New York winter,
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and spent their summers rolling about in the dirt at the roadside and making faces
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at the occupants of the automobiles which passed in a wavering, irregular string all
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day and most of the early evening along the state road between Keyesville and Plattsburgh.
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That is, there were four brats and Kathleen. To what ancestor of
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Pierre or Katie. Kathleen could have been a throwback is one of those obscure
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ethnic mysteries which are so baffling when they emerge in the families of recognized people.
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In Kathleen's case, it baffled no one, since there was no one
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in particular to remark this ferry among the ugly gnomes who pretended to be her
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brothers and sisters, this glorious little swan among rough ducklings of the goddard brood.
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Kathleen had always been utterly different from the rest. By the time she
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was six or seven, her positive characteristics were already strongly developed. She stood
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out from the rest of her sordid family like a new minted gold coin among
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pocket worn pennies. By natural choice and Habitually, she was dainty and neat.
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Dirt never stuck to her. Somehow, The rest of the brood were
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different from each other only in the varying ugliness of their budding dispositions and the
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equally variant qualities of their general detestability of appearance and habit. All the rest,
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for example, would fight at the drop of a hat to gain possession
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of anything that turned up on appropriate created that even vaguely suggested value to their
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joint scrutiny. In these snarling contests. Kathleen COOLi aloof was uninterested the rest
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possessed in common that coarse, scrubby hair of indeterminate color which characterizes the children
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of outdoor living peasants the world over. Kathleen's a shimmering glory of delicate ringlets
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showe burnished copper in the afternoon sun when she swept off the rickety back porch,
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or daintily threw a few grains of hard corn to Pierre's scraggly hens.
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At sixteen, she was as coolly aloof from the blandishments of the coarse young
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men of her neighborhood as ever she had been to the scrambling bickerings of her
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family. All such advances left her wholly uninterested. What dreams and aspirations lay
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behind those clear blue eyes, eyes, those eyes like the blue of the
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Caribbean at noon. No one had ever guessed, that is, no one
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except the good priest Father Tracy, who came over from one of the neighboring
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towns for mass every Sunday morning, and on alternate Saturday nights and before first
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Fridays, to hear the confessions of this outlying portion of his difficult flock.
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To Father Tracy, it had been for some time clear that the lovely body
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of the little Kathleen harbored one of those rare souls, delicate and fragrant,
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which burn with the desire to offer themselves holy to the love of God.
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Here the Good Father knew, or strongly suspected, was a budding vocation for
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the religious life, a vocation which it was one of his rewards to cultivate
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and foster. As yet, Kathleen was too young to leave her home,
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even if that had been feasible, and enter upon in a vishit with the
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Good Sisters at Plattsburgh, or perhaps better still, in her case, with
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some other good sisters much farther away from the place of her sordid origins.
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But for this vocation, as he watched it grow at first week and trembling
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up towards the dim light of a possible fulfillment, then later with the kind
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of thin but pure and steady flame, Father Tracy said many no venus of
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Thanksgiving, it was one of his chief sources of happiness, And, as
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was natural in such cases, Kathleen responded to his interest in her, and
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through his gentle, kindly leading of her soul was beginning as she fulfilled her
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maturity to see the distant light more and more clearly. This vision she cherished
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with all her heart, and if it begot in her and almost perceptible wistfulness,
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it did nothing to minimize the cheerful kindliness with which she went about the
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performance of her daily tasks, or they cultivated discretion with which she had laboriously
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learned to meet and neutralize with challengeable moods of her vicious father and slatternly loose
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minded mother. The wind swept habitation for God which she had made of her
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pure little heart was rudely battered on a certain Thursday morning in the month of
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August in her seventeenth year. Pierre, her father, who combined with the
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shiftless existence of a small peasant fanner, the more adventurous and profitable evocation of
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a bootleggers runner for a Plattsburgh operator, was frequently away from home at night
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and even for days at a time, when he was engaged in doing his
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part in bringing concerns signs of illicit merchandise down from unknown points in nearby Canada,
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either over land along the state road or by devious and rutted byways,
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or what was an easier, though somewhat less direct method much favored by the
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profession up the lake on dark nights, a process which was more lucrative because
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there were less people to bribe, and correspondingly somewhat more dangerous, as requiring
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a landing on the shores of Vermont, across the lake or somewhere on the
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New York side. He had been away on one of these expeditions for two
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days and had returned some time during the small hours Wednesday night. On that
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Thursday morning, after two nearly sleepless nights, unkempt ugly as a bear with
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a sore nose, he pushed his way into the kitchen about nine o'clock and
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demanded something to eat. Kathleen brought him his food, and he ate in
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a brooding silence. She waited, sitting on the step below the open doorway,
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for him to finish, so that she might wash his dishes and tidy
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up the table after him, softly humming a tuneless little song, her mind
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entirely otherworldly. Pierre, having finished his breakfast, came straight to the point
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of a certain matter which he had been cogitating for several weeks, come here,
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he said. She rose and came to the table, expecting that he
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required another cup of coffee or something of the sort. Shut the door,
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barked her father. She closed the door leading to the small hallway out of
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the kitchen, wonderingly, and returned to her father's side. How old are
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you, he asked, looking at her as though he was appraising her.
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Seventeen seventeen. Eh. His eyes went over her again in such fashion that,
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without knowing why, she felt suddenly choked. Ah, seventeen old enough.
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Now listen, that is old enough. You are going to marry Steve
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Benham. I got that all fixed. See me and him. We talk
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about it a lot, and Steve is all right for it. The choking
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feeling nearly overcame her. The blood seemed to suffuse her whole body, and
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then receded somewhere, leaving her icy cold and afraid. Marriage had never entered
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Kathleen's mind, and Steve Benham ben him was a brutal faced young tuff who,
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with greater advantages such as are offered to the denizens of great cities in
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their worst aspects, might have shown as a criminal of the lower type.
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A yegg, a killer for hire, the ready and effective tool of some
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brutal organized gang. As it was, he had taken advantage of such opportunities
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as presented themselves to his some one restricted field of development. He was one
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of Levine's crowd in the bootlegging operations, a close associate of Pierre Goddard's.
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What the hell's the matter with you? Now? Roared Pierre, curbing his
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voice slightly in view of his desire for secrecy. This was his lookout and
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none of Katy's business. He could handle his own girl all by himself,
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without his wife's having any part in it. Benham had offered him two hundred
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dollars to put it through for him, and that two hundred dollars he meant
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to have and as soon as possible too. Steve's all right, Ainy,
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what's the matter with Steve? Now? Cut out this blubberin. Kathleen's lips
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were trembling in a colorless face, her eyes big and bright with the tears
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she was forcing to remain on shed. She knew the resources of this brute
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of a father, which an inscrutably unkind providence had inflicted upon her. Pierre
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his anger, mouth hunting by leaps and bounds, glared at her, his
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ugly face rendered hideous by a savage snarl, his clenched hand showing white at
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the knuckles as he gripped the table's edge. Oh daddy, I can't,
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I can't. Kathleen's restraint had broken down under this unexpected and crushing blow.
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She sank down in a chair at the side of the table and buried her
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lovely head in her hands, her body shaken with convulsive sobs. This weakening
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aroused all the half laden brute and goddard with a savage curse. He seized
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Kathleen by her hair, dragging her face up from the table, and with
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the back of the other hand, dealt her several cruel and heavy blows.
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She sank as she shrank away to the floor, a shuddering heap of misery
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and pain. Pierre rose, his anger, partially allied, and looked down
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at her. He kicked her, but lightly in the side. Get up
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out of that and get to hell out o here and clean yourself up.
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Steve's comin in about noon, and I'm going to tell him it's all set
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for him. Don't you daest do nothing? To spoil it neither, ye
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hear, Now get up and beat it along, and get yourself pretty up.
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He seized her roughly by the shoulder, dragged her by her feet,
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and shoved her through the door into the hallway upstairs. In her tiny little
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room, she lay across the bed, bruised and shaken, trying to collect
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her wits. One refuge, and one only occurred to her, for even
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under the stress of this unexpected manifestation of her father's known brutality, she had
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no idea of giving in to his demand and receiving Steve Benham as her suitor.
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Trembling shaken in every fiber of her delicate body, but with her almost
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unformulated resolve burning within her like a bright, strong flame, she dragged herself
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resolutely to her feet and began painfully to change her clothes. She had decided
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to go to father Tracy for protection. An hour later, very softly,
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she crept downstairs. It was past ten o'clock and she would have to manage
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to elude her mother. Her brothers and sister had not been about the house,
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she remembered, since their breakfast time. Her mother would be below.
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She had been out in the chicken yard. When her father had come into
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the kitchen for his breakfast. He had gone out immediately after she had come
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upstairs, probably to report progress to Benham. She shuddered and crept down the
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stairs like a mouse. She could hear her mother aimlessly pottering about in the
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kitchen. She slipped out of the seldom use front door and out to the
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gate and along the road. As she turned the first corner, she met
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her sister Eunice, walking beside one of the town boys. Where you goin
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all dressed up? Inquired Eunice, her pert face alive with interest in this
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unexpected apperation of Kathleen in her best dress and sunday hat. Kathleen bit her
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lip. This was a wholly unexpected and entirely unavoidable misfortune. She was utterly
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unused to deceit. The truth was her only resource. I have to go
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to Villanova to see father Tracy, she replied simply. Eunus's eyes opened wide
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in astonishment. She said nothing, and Kathleen, walking as rapidly as she
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could, passed the couple and continued on her way. It was not until
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noon that Eunice arrived home, and Kathleen, with two hours start could not
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be overtaken. Goddard, on hearing his daughter's destination, was for the time
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being nonplussed. He would have to think this over. It was a wholly
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unexpected move on Kathleen's part. Cursing her in his black heart, he betook
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himself, accompanied by a fresh bottle of Levine's commodity, to the bomb and
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spent the afternoon in consultation with the bottle. About five o'clock, having had
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a brief nap and awakening in an uglier mood than ever, he came back
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to the house for another bottle, and with that he disappeared until dark.
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He did not come into the house for his supper, and to the summons
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of his son, Ernest, he replied only with such fervent curses that Earnest
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edified returned to the house to warn the rest of the family to leave the
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old man alone. About ten o'clock alone, he set out in his forward
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car. The family heard him go, but this meant nothing to them.
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They were used to his blind rages, and to his goings and comings at
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all hours, exercising that kind of low cunning which he had inherited from his
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disreputable ancestors, and which had served him well in his many evasions of the
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officers of the law of the State of New York. He did not drive
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through the neighborhood's small village, where Kathleen had met her sister walking, but
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took a devious way through obscure mountain roads to Villanova, the larger town,
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which lay several miles inland from the lake shore, and where Father Tracy lived.
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He left his ford several rods up a wood road at the foot of
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the mountain near the edge of the town, and threaded his way through the
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more obscure streets in the direction of the rectory. Very few people were abroad,
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but when he arrived at the edge of the back yard of the parochial
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residence, he observed with a certain satisfaction that the house was lighted in what
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he said opposed to be the pastor's study on the first floor. He had
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brought the automatic pistol which always accompanied his professional journeys over the Canadian border,
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but his ride in the pure adorandack night, and the necessity for a concentration
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in driving over the rough mountain roads, had dissipated the effects of the two
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bottles of cut whiskey, which he had consumed to that degree that as he
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approached the house with murder in his black heart, he did so with all
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the native cunning he possessed, keyed to the last notch, and indeed in
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a state of almost preternatural caution. But within him, unleashed, burned the
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evil fires of rage, disappointment, and hatred against his daughter and this good
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priest, which had seared and hardened his evil soul to the point where he
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would stop at nothing. Under the stress of this stimulation, he decided suddenly
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not to use the pistol, and he looked about the yard for a suitable
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weapon. The devil placed one to his hand. There, near the back
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porch lay an ideal club, a section of thin gas pipe left that very
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day by the local plumber, who had fitted a new section to the hand
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pump which supplied the kitchen. He picked up the pipe, which was about
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two feet in length, and balanced it in his hand a devilish grin,
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contorting his bleared features very softly, he approached the house on the side which
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lay in shadow, and took his stand under the lighted study window. Cautiously,
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he raised himself to a level with the lower edge of the window,
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and peered through the transverse aperture left by an imperfectly pulled down shade. Kathleen
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sat with her back to him, within two feet of the open window.
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On the other side the table sat the priest. Kathleen was speaking. He
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craned his neck to listen, his teeth now unconsciously bared. I think it
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would be better for me to go out to the convent out there in the
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west, father, she was saying. For as you say, the farther
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away I go, the safer I would feel. The priest made some reply
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of acquiescence and approval, unintelligible to Goddard, who was now busily engaged in
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removing, with the delicate touch of a repairer of watches, the fasteners from
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the wire screen which separated him from his prey. It came out in his
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hands without a sound, and before the priest had finished his remark, Goddard
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was in the room cursing frenziedly, though still softly, for he was still
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under the influence of his cautious obsession. He sprang like a tiger through the
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window, and with one terrific blow, had crushed his daughter's lovely head like
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an eggshell. Father Tracy, overcome with horror and momentarily helpless in the face
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of this berserk attack. Out of the calm mediocrity of his side yard,
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was the next victim, with unspeakable blasphemies on his crusted lips, foam in
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the corners of his mouth. Goddard was upon him, and the iron bell
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fell again and again, until all human semblance was gone, and a heap
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of huddled pulp on the rapidly crimsoning floor of his quiet study was all that
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remained mortal of the kindly priest of God. Then, shivering under the fearful
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reaction of his holocaust, Goddard, exercising the last remaining power of the stimulation
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of his low cunning, blew out the lamp and his silently as a shadow
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slipped out through the opened window onto the grass beneath. He turned back along
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the shadow of the house, but before he had reached the open yard behind
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he bethought him abruptly of the detached wire screen which he had left leaning against
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the side of the house. He returned catlike and busied himself with refastening it.
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Just as he snicked home the last of the four patent fasteners. Footsteps
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approached along the sidewalk from the farther side of the house, and he crouched
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like an animal against the side of the house in deep protecting shadow. The
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footsteps, accompanied by two unconstrained voices and punctuated by raucous laughs, continued past
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the house. Goddard held his breath until it seemed to burn within his breast,
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and furtively, catlike watched with unwinking small eyes eyes the two uncertainly outlined
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figures past the house. At last they were gone, and noiselessly, he
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slipped again along the side of the house in the protecting shadow and disappeared into
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the tangle of weeds at the end of the yard. Again by back streets,
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he threaded his way tortuously towards the mountain road where he had concealed his
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car. As he stepped cautiously out on to the main road which led into
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the village of Villanova, he almost ran into two large men who were standing
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smoking silently at the roadside. Involuntarily, he stopped, and the two turned
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toward him. A blinding flash dazzled his eyes as one of the men turned
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the gleam of an electric flashlight in the direction of the furtive shape which had
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broken in upon their meditation. At once Goddard was recognized it was the two
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men who had passed the rectory while he was replacing the wire's screen in the
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window. Both hailed him by name, What you wa doin way out here
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this time and night? Pierre came the full base of Martin de Laney.
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Gosh, almighty, thought you was a ghost or something. It was the
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squeaky voice of Leuis LaGrande, shaking an object terror. The stimulation of his
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blood lust entirely dissipated and no longer supporting him, Pierre Goddard could only stand
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his knees shaking and knocking, and goggle back at his interlocutors. At last,
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after the passage of several moments and a new look, one of curiosity,
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had implanted itself on the faces of the two countrymen, Goddard managed to
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gasp, in a dry, throaty voice not at all like his own,
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something about a piece of business here in Villanova, And not waiting to ascertain
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what effect his unusual preoccupation might have upon Delaney and the Grand he hasted at
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a kind of shambling trod down the main road toward his hidden car. Both
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Delaney and the Grande were very much mystified at Goddard's unusual behavior. The two
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cronies, commonly bereft of all but the usual topics of local conversation, which
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were anything but interesting, made the most of this mild mystery. Therefore,
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it was very firmly implanted in their rather obtuse minds that there could be only
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one possible author of the horrible crime which had been committed in the rectory when
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the little town buzzed and seethed with it the next morning. By ten o'clock
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of that Friday, a posse was out after Goddard, under the direction of
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a deputy sheriff and equipped with three automobiles, and had traced him as far
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as Willsborough Point by an imperfection in one of his tires, when the search
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was abruptly terminated by finding the car itself, which he had abandoned at the
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side of the Point road, at the intersection of another road which led down
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to the shore of the lake. It did not require more than the very
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average intelligence of Deputy Sheriff Maailiure to come to the obvious conclusion that he had
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gone across the lake and into Vermont, a conclusion corroborated by the statement of
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an irate resident camper who had been searching during the past hour and a half
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for a missing Saint Lawrence Skiff, in which the camper had planned to go
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perch fishing that morning, and which could nowhere be discovered. The posse drove
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back to Willsboro station and notified the Vermont authorities at Burlington by telegraph. Then
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Deputy Sheriff Mailire reported to his superior who got in touch with Albany, asking
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requisition papers on the Governor of the state of Vermont for a fugitive who had
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the night before brutally murdered his own daughter and a blameless priest of God.
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But the Vermont authorities, although they took due action upon the telegraphed information,
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which contained an exact description of Goddard, failed signally to get on the track
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of the fugitive from justice, who had left the New York shore unmistakably from
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Willsboro point. Every usual precaution was taken, and for some time it was
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surmised that Goddard, familiar with the lake shores, from a lifetime of contiguous
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residence, and from his professional activities as a rum runner, had managed to
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land on the Vermont side and make his escape into the mountains. The greatest
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puzzle was what could have become of that Saint Lawrence skiff, which he had
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discovered so opportunely. Some of the clearer headed of those who set themselves to
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solve this proper problem came to the conclusion that Goddard, desiring to conceal from
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his pursuers the point of his departure inland in Vermont, had scuttled the boat
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near the shore's edge, which he could easily have managed either by smashing a
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hole or two after landing, weighing down the skiff with rocks, and shoving
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her out into the deep waters of the lake, or by doing the scuttling
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before landing and swimming ashore. At any rate, there was on the Vermont
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side no trace either of the fugitive or of the delicate little vessel in which
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he had left the New York side. As Goddard sped away from the vicinity
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of Villanova, it required from him every particle of concentration he could summon to
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drive it all he opened up his dingy little car, which had, despite
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its battered appearance and excellent engine, and hitting the high spots of the twining
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rough mountain roads, he concentrated every effort in the blind urge to put as
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many miles as possible between himself and the scene of his horrible crime. It
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was only when, after several miles of incredible bumping and swaying, he had
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reached a state road that a definite object for his flight began to take form
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in his harassed and befuddled mind. As he gave fragmentary thought to this pressing
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problem, something of his native low cunning reasserted itself. His evil mind began
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to function. It first became plain to him that he could not return to
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his squalid home. He had been seen and recognized. His one hope was
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that the crushed and mangled bodies of his unfortunate victims might not be discovered until
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morning. There was no good reason why they should be discovered. The priest,
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as he knew very well, lived alone except for a superannuated old woman
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who was his housekeeper, and this ancient crone had unquestionably retired for the night
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long before his arrival in Villanova, being ancient and decrepit, she could be
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trusted to sleep through everything until morning. Barring a night call for Father Tracy.
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The chances were excellent that the bodies would not be discovered until some time
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the next morning. It was now a little after midnight. It would be
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light around four o'clock. He had something like four hours to work in.
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He speeded up the car along the lake shore southward. He would go up
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the lake as the southerly direction, for some inexplicable reason, was called locally
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away from Canada. Canada had been his first lucid thought, but that,
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as he reasoned cunningly, would necessitate a wide detour or else passing through Plattsburgh,
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and he wished to risk neither the loss of time nor the dash through
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a good sized city, even at one o'clock in the morning. Therefore,
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he turned south in the direction of Essex. As he neared Willsboro, the
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town just north of Essex, a brand new idea occurred to him. By
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abandoning his car somewhere hereabouts, he could get an earlier start for crossing the
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lake into Vermont. With every mile he traveled, the lake narrowed but straight
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across from Willsboro. It would only be four miles, and he reasoned he
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would rather be out on the lake in the dim dusk of early morning than
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attempting to conceal his car and steal a boat in anything approaching daylight a little
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past the Willsboro Railroad station. Therefore, his idea having begotten another in his
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cunning brain, this time something in the nature of an inspiration. He turned
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his ear sharply to the left, grinning ear as he acted upon his newest
32:01
hunch, and ran back nearly at right angles with his previous course, down
32:07
upon Willsborough Point. This is a peninsula several miles in length, running northeasterly,
32:15
a section of fine farmland in the center its two shores, thickly populated
32:22
by summer campers city people. For the most part, no one pursuing would
32:27
ever imagine that he had turned off, he reasoned. Besides, the city
32:31
people at the camps had canoes, and in a canoe from somewhere near the
32:37
point's end, he could with the greatest ease make his unseen way out to
32:43
one of the four brother islands, conceal the canoe in some dense thicket of
32:47
underbrush, and effectively hide out. There were two lake gulls eggs in abundance
32:54
on the island, and no one would suspect until it was two late that
33:00
he had done otherwise than attempt to make his escape, either into Canada,
33:06
his own first idea, or across the lake into Vermont. The car was
33:12
his immediate problem, but there was no way of solving that. There was,
33:16
as he well knew, no water along the shore deep enough to permit
33:21
his sending it at full speed over the edge into the lake, and so
33:25
hiding it effectually. He left it directly in the road and slunk down to
33:31
the lake shore at his right in search of a canoe. His luck held.
33:37
At the very first camp he reached, he found not only canoes,
33:42
but a Saint Lawrence skiff, a staunch type of boat, round bottomed,
33:47
sharp nosed at both ends, a boat capable like a canoe, of being
33:53
managed with a light paddle, but although equally fast, infinitely stauncher, and
34:00
less dangerous than any canoe. Silently he launched out into the lake, and
34:06
with swift yet noiseless paddle strokes, shot his stolen skiff out into the black
34:13
darkness in the direction of the four brothers. These islands less isless des quatre
34:20
events of the voyagers are old haunts of the lake smugglers. They lie from
34:27
the viewpoint of one approaching them directly from the point shore, in the order
34:31
of a mouth, nose, and two eyes, roughly speaking, The nearest,
34:37
called the mouth, was sighted after a few minutes of vigorous paddling by
34:42
Goddard, who passed it to the right or southerly direction. It had upon
34:46
it a cabin, former residence of the keeper of the gulls, which are
34:52
protected by state law. Goddard was not looking for the comforts of cabins.
34:58
He passed the nose a low lying swampy island, and paddled on to the
35:04
island which would correspond to the left eye. This, the most rarely visited
35:09
of the islands infested with gulls, presents, like its fellow eye, a
35:15
precipitous shore all around, and is heavily forested with evergreens and thick virgin underbrush.
35:23
Guided precisely by the noise of the gulls, which are constantly bickering,
35:29
and then by his own keen eyesight, Goddard carefully navigated the little island.
35:34
Finally, landing and drawing the skiff into a tiny bay, which was little
35:38
more than a cleft in the guano covered rocks. He concealed the skiff despite
35:45
the darkness with immense cleverness, and began the difficult ascent of the cliff.
35:51
At last, bruised, spent, and befouled with guano, he reached the
35:55
summit and half walked, half crawled through the tangled underbrush towards the almost impenetrable
36:02
center. In his ascent, he had disturbed countless nesting gulls, and their
36:08
din to his strained and taunted nerves, was distracting, but the increased noise
36:15
did not trouble him. The gulls were always at it day and night,
36:19
and such an increase would not be heard a mile and a half away on
36:22
the sleeping point. It was, curiously enough, the spider webs that really
36:28
annoyed him. Undisturbed for centuries, these midnight spinners had worked and spun and
36:35
plundered the air without hindrance. As Goddard pushed his precipitous way up the rocks
36:40
and then again through the almost impenetrable underbrush, he was constantly brushing away long
36:46
clinging webs which crossed and recrossed before his face and neck, and about his
36:53
scratched and bleeding hands and wrists. As he penetrated farther and farther toward towards
37:00
the slightly conical center of the little island, it seemed to him that both
37:06
the restraining pressure and the clinging tendency of the webs were on the increase.
37:12
But his native wit assured him that this impression was due to his fatigue and
37:17
the reaction from the enormous amount of bad whisky he had imbibed during the afternoon.
37:24
He was, indeed in the very depths of reactive depression. He cursed
37:30
softly and bitterly, with a despairing note of self pity, as the webs,
37:36
ever thicker and stronger, as it seemed, appeared almost to reach out
37:39
after him, to bar his way to effectual concealment. At last, trembling
37:45
in every limb, the salt sweat running into his parched mouth, shaking and
37:51
weak, he observed that he was stepping slightly downhill. His progress since leaving
37:58
the upper edge of the cliff had been slightly ascending. He had reached the
38:02
approximate center of the island. Wearily, he paused, and almost sobbing out
38:08
of his bitter curses, tore fretfully with trembling fingers at a great mass of
38:15
thick, silky web that had attached itself to his mouth. As he looked
38:22
about him through the darkness and felt with his hands for a comparatively level place
38:28
on which to sit down, he almost shrieked he had put his hand down
38:32
on something feathery, soft, and yielding to the touch. He looked horrified
38:37
at the ground, gibbering in mortal terror. He drew a box of matches
38:44
from his pocket, and, cupping his hands, cautiously drew one across the
38:49
side of the box. The flare of the safety match revealed something white.
38:53
He looked closer, stooping near the ground and carefully guarding the flame of his
38:59
match, and he saw that it was the body of a gull. Something,
39:04
he thought, something that seemed as big as his two fists, scampered
39:07
away through the underbrush awkwardly, a lumpish kind of thing, a mink or
39:13
weasel, his reason reassured him. The match went out, burning his fingers,
39:20
and a pall of sudden blackness fell upon him. Terrified, less moved
39:24
with the caution of a life long habitude for concealment. Now he struck another
39:30
match and examined the gull by its yellow flare. From the bird's throat ran
39:36
two thin streams of blood. The blood stained his hands as he picked it
39:40
up. The gull was warm, living. It struggled sinuously faintly in his
39:47
hands. All about it, about its head, and about its legs,
39:52
and pinning its powerful wings. Close to its side, ran great silken swaths
39:59
of spider's web. The gull muttered squeakingly, and writhed weakly between his hands
40:06
with a scream he could not suppress. He hurled it from him and attempted
40:10
to rush away from this place of horror. But, now weakened by his
40:16
exertions, his forces sapped by long debauchery, his nerves jangling from the terrific
40:23
stress he had put upon them that night, he could not run. All
40:29
about him, the underbrush closed in. It seemed to him as though bent
40:35
malignantly upon imprisoning him. Here among these nameless, silent, spinning demons which
40:42
had destroyed the gull, he had hurled his matches away with the same flinging
40:47
motion begotten of his horror. It was utterly impossible to recover them. Now
40:54
the thick blackness had closed down upon him again. At the burning out of
41:00
the second match, he could feel the blood suffuse his entire body and then
41:05
recede, leaving him cold. He shivered as he suddenly felt the sweat cold
41:12
against his sodden body. Chill after chill raced down his spine. He whimpered
41:19
and called suddenly upon God, the forgotten God of his erratic childhood. But
41:25
God, it seemed, had no answer for him. A soft touch came
41:31
delicately upon the back of his clenched right hand. Something soft, clinging and
41:38
silky passed around it. Suddenly, he shrieked again and spasmodically tore his hand
41:45
loose. But even as he struggled to free his hand, a terrible pain
41:51
seared his leg, a pain as though he had stepped under water upon a
41:55
sting ray, a pain as though a red hot point had been thrust far
42:01
into his calf. And then something soft and clinging fell upon his head,
42:07
and he could feel the thick strands of silk being woven remorselessly through his hair
42:14
and about his ears. As he sank to the ground, his consciousness rapidly
42:19
waning. The first clinging, composite, deliberate strands went across his eyes.
42:25
His last conscious thought was of his daughter Kathleen's soft, silky hair. It
42:34
was not until nearly two weeks later that the skiff came to light, when
42:38
four large rowboats slowly approached Les Ils de Squatre Vents from the direction of the
42:46
lakeside of the base of the point. Crowded into the boats were the boys
42:52
from Camp Cherokee, making one of their annual boat hikes to the Four Islands.
42:57
Their course naturally brought them first to the island, which has been called
43:00
the Left Eye. The Saint Lawrence skiff, loosened from its primitive fastenings by
43:07
a heavy storm which had intervened, had slipped out several feet from its concealed
43:12
underbrush. Oh look, somebody's out here, already, shouted a sharp eyed
43:17
youngster in the bow of the foremost rowboat. Can't we land here, mister
43:22
Tanner, asked one of the older boys, when all the eyes had sought
43:25
out and discovered the skiff. We have plenty of time. Nobody ever comes
43:31
to this island, they say, and most of us saw the others last
43:35
year. Consulting his watch his mind on lunch ashore, the counselor in charge
43:42
of the boat Hike gave his consent, and the four rowboats drew in close
43:46
to the spot where Goddard had made his landing. Mister Tanner looked closely at
43:52
the skiff. I shouldn't be a bit surprised, he remarked, slowly,
43:58
if that were the skiff that was stolen from down on the Point a couple
44:01
of weeks ago. The boys chattered excitedly while the boats lay off the shore
44:07
of the left Eye. Mister Tanner, considering it was not impossible that the
44:13
murderer Goddard lay concealed on the island, no one had hitherto thought of such
44:19
a possibility. Mister Tanner came to a conclusion, after rapid thought, he
44:24
would take the skiff, thus cutting off the murderer, if indeed he were
44:30
concealed on the island, from any probable escape. So far it appeared a
44:36
clear course. Two reliable older boys placed in charge of the salvage skiff returned
44:44
it to its owner, who promptly telephoned the sheriff. Mister Tanner conducted his
44:49
protesting flotilla across to the island which has been called the Mouth, the island
44:54
on which stood the Hut and where the boy's temporary campsite had been planned.
45:00
The oars moved reluctantly, for the boys wanted to land and hunt the murderer.
45:07
Mister Tanner, whose responsibility lay in another direction than the apprehension of criminals,
45:14
preferred to proceed according to schedule. Two hours later, a laden rowboat
45:19
put off from the point and approached the four brothers. The watching boys,
45:23
thus, as it were augmented by the authorities, could be restrained no longer.
45:30
Mister Tanner was able to manage it, so that his four rowboats followed
45:35
the official rowboat to the left eye. Beyond that he could not control his
45:40
indians. The boys nearly swamped their boats in eagerness to disembark. In the
45:46
end, it was one of them who did actually discover Goddard's remains. Gosh,
45:52
the rest heard him shout, look here, everybody, here's a thing
45:58
like a mummy. The spot was soon surrounded the more agile boys, distancing
46:04
the slower moving sheriff and constables. Goddard's body easily identifiable from its clothing lay,
46:12
or more precisely, hung in the thickest tangle of all the tangled bushes
46:17
and brush, which made the central highest point of the little island almost impenetrable.
46:22
At first sight, it gave the impression of a bundle of clothes rather
46:28
than a human body. It was, as the boy had cried out,
46:31
virtually a mummy, though sodden through the dragled clothes, which Goddard's progress through
46:38
the tearing brush had greatly disarranged by the effects of the heavy storm which had
46:45
revealed the skiff. It gave the appearance of a human body which, as
46:50
though by some long process of time, had dried up to a mere fraction
46:54
of its original bulk. It swayed, held free of the ground by the
47:00
heavy brush, in the brisk breeze which was blowing up the lake from the
47:05
cold north. The grayish appearance of this strange similochrum of a human form,
47:10
which at first puzzled the men when they approached to disengage it from the tangled
47:15
bushes, was found to be due to the innumerable heavy strands of broad,
47:21
opalescent silky webbing webbing which had been wound about the head, about the hands,
47:28
and arms and legs, webbing now frayed and torn in places by the
47:32
wind and the friction of the bushes. One of the constables, a heavier,
47:38
rather brutal faced person, pulled at it and rubbed it from his hands
47:43
on his canvas overalls. Looks for all the world like spotter web, He
47:49
remarked, laconically, what do you suppose it can be? Herb, addressing
47:53
the deputy sheriff in charge, Herb Maclear. The sheriff pushed his way through
48:00
through the bush, close to the body. He too examined the web,
48:05
touching it gingerly with his fingers, and then rubbing his fingers as though something
48:09
uncanny, unwholesome had touched him. The boys, sensing something dreadful, fell
48:16
silent. Several pushed their way toward mister Tanner and stood near him. Maclear,
48:22
pale, now stooped and seemed to be looking at something near the ground.
48:28
Give me that stick, he ordered. One of the constables handed him
48:31
what he demanded, and with it the sheriff poked at something on the ground.
48:37
Their curiosity overcoming the general sense of something queer about the whole proceeding several
48:44
of the boys and two of the constables shouldered through the brush toward the sheriff,
48:49
now digging with his stick, his face red again from stooping and his
48:53
exertions. Those standing nearest observed that the sheriff was in large a hole that
49:00
ran into the ground, near the heavy root of one of the bushes,
49:05
a hole about which were heavy warps of the same gray, shimmering web.
49:10
The stick broke through a soft spot and sank far into the enlarged hole.
49:16
My god, they heard the sheriff say. He played delicately with the stick,
49:23
as though working at something that the ground obscured. He twisted and worked
49:29
it about in the hole. At last he drew it up, still carefully,
49:35
gingerly, and on its end transfixed. There came into the light of
49:40
that morning a huge, frightful, maimed thing of satiny loathsome black like the
49:47
fur of a bat, with glowing salmon colored striping showing upon its hunched back,
49:54
A spider as large as a prize peach, with great waving now ineffective
50:02
metal like mandibles. They saw its little burning eyes, like harsh diamonds,
50:08
gleam once before the sheriff, holding it on the ground with his stick,
50:15
set his foot on the dreadful thing. The wind blew cold from the north
50:21
as the men in a tight knot, half dragged, half carried the meager
50:25
body of Pierre Goddard hastily out through the retarding brush in silence, while a
50:32
subdued and silent group of boys closely gathered about their white faced counselor hurried down
50:39
the declivity toward the edge of the cliff, below which they could see their
50:45
boats floating down there in the clean water end of Section ten. Left eye