valley now it was like a fog bank torn to rags. He tried to grasp the

situation.



"Ride for it!" the little man was shouting. "Ride for it down the

valley."



What happened then was like the confusion of a battle. The man

with the silver bridle saw the little man go past him slashing

furiously at imaginary cobwebs, saw him cannon into the horse

of the gaunt man and hurl it and its rider to earth. His own horse

went a dozen paces before he could rein it in. Then he looked up

to avoid imaginary dangers, and then back again to see a horse

rolling on the ground, the gaunt man standing and slashing over it

at a rent and fluttering mass of grey that streamed and wrapped

about them both. And thick and fast as thistle-down on waste land

on a windy day in July, the cobweb masses were coming on.



The little man had dismounted, but he dared not release his horse.

He was endeavouring to lug the struggling brute back with the strength

of one arm, while with the other he slashed aimlessly, The tentacles

of a second grey mass had entangled themselves with the struggle,

and this second grey mass came to its moorings, and slowly sank.



The master set his teeth, gripped his bridle, lowered his head,

and spurred his horse forward. The horse on the ground rolled over,

there were blood and moving shapes upon the flanks, and the gaunt man,

suddenly leaving it, ran forward towards his master, perhaps ten paces.

His legs were swathed and encumbered with grey; he made ineffectual

movements with his sword. Grey streamers waved from him; there was

a thin veil of grey across his face. With his left hand he beat at

something on his body, and suddenly he stumbled and fell. He struggled

to rise, and fell again, and suddenly, horribly, began to howl,

"Oh--ohoo, ohooh!"



The master could see the great spiders upon him, and others upon

the ground.



As he strove to force his horse nearer to this gesticulating,

screaming grey object that struggled up and down, there came a

clatter of hoofs, and the little man, in act of mounting, swordless,

balanced on his belly athwart the white horse, and clutching its mane,

whirled past. And again a clinging thread of grey gossamer swept

across the master's face. All about him, and over him, it seemed

this drifting, noiseless cobweb circled and drew nearer him. . . .



To the day of his death he never knew just how the event of that moment

happened. Did he, indeed, turn his horse, or did it really of its

own accord stampede after its fellow? Suffice it that in another

second he was galloping full tilt down the valley with his sword

whirling furiously overhead. And all about him on the quickening



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