they faced one another. Overhead the spiders' balls went driving.

There was a quick movement among the pebbles; a running of feet,

a cry of despair, a gasp and a blow. . . .



Towards nightfall the wind fell. The sun set in a calm serenity,

and the man who had once possessed the silver bridle came at last

very cautiously and by an easy slope out of the ravine again; but now

he led the white horse that once belonged to the little man.

He would have gone back to his horse to get his silver-mounted

bridle again, but he feared night and a quickening breeze might

still find him in the valley, and besides he disliked greatly

to think he might discover his horse all swathed in cobwebs

and perhaps unpleasantly eaten.



And as he thought of those cobwebs and of all the dangers he

had been through, and the manner in which he had been preserved

that day, his hand sought a little reliquary that hung about his neck,

and he clasped it for a moment with heartfelt gratitude. As he did so

his eyes went across the valley.



"I was hot with passion," he said, "and now she has met her reward.

They also, no doubt--"



And behold! Far away out of the wooded slopes across the valley,

but in the clearness of the sunset distinct and unmistakable,

he saw a little spire of smoke.



At that his expression of serene resignation changed to an amazed

anger. Smoke? He turned the head of the white horse about, and

hesitated. And as he did so a little rustle of air went through the

grass about him. Far away upon some reeds swayed a tattered sheet of

grey. He looked at the cobwebs; he looked at the smoke.



"Perhaps, after all, it is not them," he said at last.



But he knew better.



After he had stared at the smoke for some time, he mounted the white

horse.



As he rode, he picked his way amidst stranded masses of web. For some

reason there were many dead spiders on the ground, and those that

lived feasted guiltily on their fellows. At the sound of his horse's

hoofs they fled.



Their time had passed. From the ground without either a wind to carry

them or a winding sheet ready, these things, for all their poison,

could do him little evil. He flicked with his belt at those

he fancied came too near. Once, where a number ran together over

a bare place, he was minded to dismount and trample them with his boots,



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