Jolie Stanwicke stood as though turned to stone. Over Lachlan, also, there swept a sudden surge of horror. He knew the golden spider well, had admired a hundred times the shining golden discs that it spun in the woods. Despite its great size and its ugliness, he had never feared it before; but fear and loathing held him rigid now.
The thing never swerved, never paused. Slowly it moved along the table straight towards Stanwicke's hand resting on the table's edge. The hand did not move. Lachlan, staring in new horror at Stanwicke's colourless face, saw that the man was past movement, past consciousness.
The creature's hairy legs touched the fingers, the swollen, mottled body mounted upon the wrist. Slowly it moved up Stanwicke's arm to his shoulder, along his shoulder to his chest. From his chest it passed to the death-like mask of his upturned face, and there it halted, its long, hairy legs spread wide. So huge was it that the legs stretched from cheek to cheek; and as it sat there, hiding half the face of the man, its great bloated, spotted body moved up and down, up and down, as though the creature were sucking blood.
It was Almayne who broke the spell of horror that had been cast upon them all. With a low cry, he sprang through the doorway into the room and, snatching off his cap, swept it across Stanwicke's face. The huge spider fell to the floor. Almayne crushed it with his heel, then bent over the man in the chair.
