Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells Page A

comes in."
    "I never could have dreamt you would have left him. He saved your life
two minutes before.... Why are you our lord?"
    The master gnawed his knuckles again, and his countenance was dark.
    "No man calls me a coward," he said. "No. A broken sword is better than
none.... One spavined white horse cannot be expected to carry two men
a four days' journey. I hate white horses, but this time it cannot be
helped. You begin to understand me?... I perceive that you are minded,
on the strength of what you have seen and fancy, to taint my reputation.
It is men of your sort who unmake kings. Besides which—I never liked
you."
    "My lord!" said the little man.
    "No," said the master. "NO!"
    He stood up sharply as the little man moved. For a minute perhaps 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, but this impulse he
overcame. Ever and again he turned in his saddle, and looked back at the
smoke.
    "Spiders," he muttered over and over again. "Spiders! Well, well.... The
next time I must spin a web."

4 - The Truth About Pyecraft
*
    He sits not a dozen yards away. If I glance over my shoulder I can see
him. And if I catch his eye—and usually I catch his eye—it meets me
with an expression.
    It is mainly an imploring look—and yet with suspicion in it.
    Confound his suspicion! If I wanted to tell on him I should have told
long ago. I don't tell and I don't tell, and he ought to feel at his
ease. As if anything so gross and fat as he could feel at ease! Who
would believe me if I did tell?
    Poor old Pyecraft! Great, uneasy jelly of substance! The fattest clubman
in London.
    He sits at one of the little club tables in the huge bay by the fire,
stuffing. What is he stuffing? I glance judiciously and catch him