something. He caught sight of the negress, and without a word having passed between them, the poor woman began to cry:
“No! no! I don’t want to!”
“And I wish it,” replied the doctor in a hard tone.
One would have said that the negress had been seized by an invincible power. She shuddered from head to foot, and Christian Weber showing her a bench, she sat down with a corpse-like stiffness.
All the bystanders, witnesses of this shocking spectacle, good folk with primitive and crude manners, but full of pious sentiments, made the sign of the cross, and I who knew not then, even by name, of the terrible magnetic power of the will, began to tremble, believing that Agatha was dead.
Christian Weber approached the negress, and making a rapid pass over her forehead:
“Are you there?” said he.
“Yes, master.”
“Sir Thomas Hawerburch?”
At these words she shuddered again.
“Do you see him?”
“Yes—yes,” she gasped in a strangling voice, “I see him.”
“Where is he?”
“Up there—in the back of the cavern—dead!”
“Dead!” said the doctor, “how?”
“The spider—Oh! the spider crab—Oh!—”
“Control your agitation,” said the doctor, who was quite pale, “tell us plainly—”
“The spider crab holds him by the throat—he is there—at the back—under the rock—wound round by webs—Ah!”
Christian Weber cast a cold glance toward his assistants, who, crowding around, with their eyes sticking out of their heads, were listening intently, and I heard him murmur:
“It’s horrible! horrible!”
Then he resumed:
“You see him?”
“I see him—”
“And the spider—is it big?”
“Oh, master, never—never have I seen such a large one—not even on the banks of the Mocaris—nor in the lowlands of Konanama. It is as large as my head—!”
There was a long silence. All the assistants looked at each other, their faces livid, their hair standing up. Christian Weber alone seemed calm; having passed his hand several times over the negress’s forehead, he continued:
“Agatha, tell us how death befell Sir Hawerburch.”
“He was bathing in the basin of the spring—the spider saw him from behind, with his bare back. It was hungry, it had fasted for a long time; it saw him with his arms on the water. Suddenly it came out like a flash and placed its fangs around the commodore’s neck, and he cried out: ‘Oh! oh! my God!’ It stung and fled. Sir Hawerburch sank down in the water and died. Then the spider returned and surrounded him with its web, and he floated gently, gently, to the back of the cavern. It drew in on the web. Now he is all black.”
The doctor, turning to me, who no longer felt the shock, asked:
“Is it true, Frantz, that the commodore went in bathing?”
“Yes, Cousin Christian.”
“At what time?”
“At four o’clock.”
“At four o’clock—it was very warm, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, yes!”
“It’s certainly so,” said he, striking his forehead. “The monster could come out without fear—”
He pronounced a few unintelligible words, and then, looking toward the mountaineers:
“My friends,” he cried, “that is where this mass of débris came from—of skeletons—which spread terror among the bathers. That is what has ruined you all—it is the spider crab! It is there—hidden in its web—awaiting its prey in the back of the cavern! Who can tell the number of its victims?”
And full of fury, he led the way, shouting:
“Fagots! Fagots!”
The woodcutters followed him, vociferating.
Ten minutes later two large wagons laden with fagots were slowly mounting the slope. A long file of woodcutters, their backs bent double, followed, enveloped in the somber night. My tutor and I walked ahead, leading the horses by their bridles, and the melancholy moon vaguely lighted this funereal march. From time to time the wheels grated. Then the carts, raised by the irregularities of the rocky road, fell again in the track with a heavy jolt.
As we drew near the cavern, on the playground of the roebucks, our cortége halted. The torches were lit, and the crowd advanced toward the gulf. The limpid water, running over the sand, reflected the bluish flame of the resinous torches, the rays of which revealed the tops of the black firs leaning over the rock.
“This is the place to unload,” the doctor then said. “It’s necessary to block up the mouth of the cavern.”
And it was not without a feeling of terror that each undertook the duty of executing his orders. The fagots fell from the top of the loads. A few stakes driven down before the opening of the spring prevented the water from carrying them away.
Toward midnight the mouth of the cavern was completely closed. The water running over spread to both sides on the moss. The top fagots were perfectly dry; then Dr. Weber, supplying himself with a torch, himself lit the fire. The flames ran from twig to twig with an angry crackling, and soon leaped toward the sky, chasing clouds of smoke before them.
It was a strange and savage spectacle, the great pile with trembling shadows lit up in this way.
This cavern poured forth black smoke, unceasingly renewed and disgorged. All around stood the woodcutters, somber, motionless, expectant, their eyes fixed on the opening; and I, although trembling from head to foot in fear, could not tear away my gaze.
It was a good quarter of an hour that we waited, and Dr. Weber was beginning to grow impatient, when a black object, with long hooked claws, appeared suddenly in the shadow and precipitated itself toward the opening.
A cry resounded about the pyre.
The spider, driven back by the live coals, reëntered its cave. Then, smothered doubtless by the smoke, it returned to the charge and leaped out into the midst of the flames. Its long legs curled up. It was as large as my head, and of a violet red.
One of the woodcutters, fearing lest it leap clear of the fire, threw his hatchet at it, and with such good aim that on the instant the fire around it was covered with blood. But soon the flames burst out more vigorously over it and consumed the horrible destroyer.
*
