nding it as tightly
as he could to the bulging joint with a strip torn from his clothing.
With a thrill of unutterable joy he realized that he was no longer
unarmed. He had manufactured a tolerably effective mace. He swung it
through the air two or three times with all his force. Such a blow would
strike a human enemy dead;--was this thing so heavily armour-plated as
to be proof against a similar stroke?

With one idea came another. These bones might be further utilized, they
might be splintered and sharpened into daggers. No sooner thought of
than carried out. And now the skeletons underwent the most ruthless
desecration. Several were wrenched asunder ere he had selected half a
dozen of the most serviceable--and these he hammered to the required
size with his newly constructed mace--sharpening them on the rough face
of the rock. And then, as with a glow of satisfaction he sat down to
rest and contemplate his handiwork--he almost laughed over the grim
whimsicality of it. Did ever mortal man go into close conflict armed in
such fashion--he wondered--with club and dagger manufactured out of the
bones of men?

Should he take the bull by the horns, and advance boldly to attack the
monster in its own den? He shrank from this. The gloom of the cavern
invested the thing with an additional element of terror, besides the
more practical consideration that a confined space might hinder him in
the use of his _bizarre_ and impromptu weapons. He would need all the
freedom of hand and eye. Once more he took out the metal box, and fed
his eyes long and earnestly upon its contents. The Sign of the Spider!
Was there indeed an influence about this trinket--or rather, the love
which had hallowed it--which was potent to stand between him and peril
in the direst extremity, even as it had stepped between him and certain
death at the spears of the victorious Ba-gcatya? Slightly improved as
was his helpless condition, yet he could not hope. Even if he succeeded
in slaying the monster, how should he escape from this death-trap, this
rock-prison? The second day closed.

How many hours of darkness should precede moonrise he could but feebly
guess. Grasping his strangely fashioned club in his right hand, and the
strongest and sharpest of his bone daggers in the left--he stood, his
back to the rock wall, so as not to be taken in the rear; never relaxing
for a moment in vigilance, his ears strained to their utmost tension,
his eyeballs striving to