certainty that their
admission into it, though it might encourage them mentally, could in no
wise benefit them materially--very much the reverse, indeed, for it
would probably bring about their destruction.

"Well, if anything is going to be done, it had better be soon or not at
all. It wouldn't take much to send me clean off my chump," said Holmes
dejectedly. "Every day I feel more inclined to break out--to run amuck
in a crowd, if only for the sake of a little excitement. Anything for a
little excitement!"

The two were strolling up and down outside Nondwana's kraal. It was a
still, hot morning; oppressive as though a storm were brooding. A filmy
haze lay upon the lower valley bottom, and the ground gave forth a
shimmer of heat. Even the amphitheatre of dazzling snow-peaks omitted to
look cool against the cloudless blue, while the coppery-terraced cliffs
seemed actually to glow as though red hot.

"I hate this," growled Holmes, looking around upon as magnificent a
scene of nature's grandeur as the earth could show, "positively hate it.
I shall never be able to stand the sight of a mountain again as long as
I live--once we are out of this. Oh, Heavens, look! What a brute!"

His accents of shuddering disgust were explained. Something was moving
among the stones in front--something with great, hairy, shoggling legs,
and a body the size of a thrush and much the same colour. A spider,
could it be, of such enormous size? Yet it was; and as truly repulsive
and horrible-looking a monster as ever made human flesh creep at
beholding.

Whack! The stone flung by Holmes struck the ground beside the creature;
struck it hard.

"Hold, you infernal fool," half snarled, half yelled Hazon. But before
he could arrest the other's arm, whack!--went a second stone. The aim
was true, the grisly beast, crushed and maimed, lay contracting and
unfolding its horrible legs in the muscular writhings of its death
throes.

"What's the row, eh?" grumbled Holmes, staring open-mouthed, under the
impression that his comrade had gone mad, and at first sight not without
reason, for Hazon's face had gone a swarthy white, and his eyes seemed
to glare forth from it like blazing coals.

"Row? You fool, you've signed our death-warrant, that's all. Here,
quick, pretend to be throwing stones on to it, as if we were playing at
some game. Don't you see? The name of this tribe--People of the Spider!
They venerate the beast. If we have been seen, nothing