to the opening. The exuding air was hot, steamy, and loaded with the smell of rotting vegetation.
"On the floor among the rocks and moldy roots lay Seton. Yet it was not this fact alone that caused me to stiffen, that almost caused my eyes to bulge from their sockets. Was it madness, this gruesome fascination that held my eyes to the bottom of that horrible pit? Was it a nightmare, these huge apparitions with loathsome heads and misshapen bodies that crawled over the body of my friend?
"Spiders! Enormous spiders! Black, with yellow stripes. Legs that fairly bristled with spines. Ugh! God, it was awful! I could see them clinging to the irregularities in the slimy walls—the most gigantic spiders I had ever set eyes upon! I tried to close my eyes—or to turn them away from the poisonous well. It was useless. I must look.
"Into that black cavern I stared—to feel my scalp tingle horrifically, to know the crowning terror of this fateful journey. The blackness was spangled with watching, glittering eyes—with tiny eyes that moved, upon the walls, upon the floor, and upon the now inert body of Seton. Over him they crawled, a veritable army of the venomous creatures; bloated, unwieldy, so great of body that their hideous, hairy legs could scarce support them.
"Their mouths dripped blood and flesh as they tore at their unfortunate victim. Already part of the body was eaten clean to the bones. What monstrosities of the insect kingdom constituted that obscene host I do not know; I only know that my skin tingled from forehead to feet, and I experienced a sensation as if a million of these unclean things clung to me. I could hear them moving, crawling, tearing, with a sort of rustling sound—a faint sibilance indescribably loathsome.
"A choking cry rose to my lips, but I was unable to utter any save mumbling sounds. With an effort I withdrew my gaze from that hellish scene as there came a low moan in my ear. Clara Seton, wrought upon past endurance, with a sobbing cry sank at my feet and lay still.
"Panic plucking at my heart, I gathered her up in my arms and stumbled from that place of gruesome horror."
Graves dropped the stub of his cigarette into his empty cup and passed his hand across his forehead as if to clear it. "I remember little of that journey back to the coast. I only know that we both were strangely silent. Our nerves were overwrought by Seton's untimely end. When we reached Guayaquil a full report was sent to the museum, explaining how he had accidentally fallen into the cave, and lying stunned had become an easy prey for the spiders before aid could be summoned."
"But," I objected, "you didn't examine the body. You should have been more thorough."
He looked at me strangely. "There are times," he said, "of which no man can recall his mental impressions, moments so acutely horrible that, mercifully, our memory retains nothing of the emotions they occasioned. The time I stood looking into that pit was one of them. Afterward in my calmer moments I realized it would have been folly. The man was unmistakably dead."
I studied him awhile. Perhaps I am somewhat of a woman-hater. Anyway I said scornfully enough: "No woman is worth that!"
Graves' eyes bored into me. He jerked himself upright. The light of comprehension seemed at last to have seeped through his brain. He darted his hand across the table, and clutching my arm, glared fixedly at me.
"You lie!" he gritted.
I saw he was sincere. I had always thought so. But I had to tell him.
