So it seemed that the creature, whatever it was to which the eyes
belonged, was, after all, but small. Why I did not obey the
frantic longing which I had to flee from it, I cannot tell; I only
know, I could not. I take it that the stress and privations which
I had lately undergone, and which I was, even then, still
undergoing, had much to do with my conduct at that moment, and
with the part I played in all that followed. Ordinarily I believe
that I have as high a spirit as the average man, and as solid a
resolution; but when one has been dragged through the Valley of
Humiliation, and plunged, again and again, into the Waters of
Bitterness and Privation, a man can be constrained to a course of
action of which, in his happier moments, he would have deemed
himself incapable. I know this of my own knowledge.

Slowly the eyes came on, with a strange slowness, and as they came
they moved from side to side as if their owner walked unevenly.
Nothing could have exceeded the horror with which I awaited their
approach,--except my incapacity to escape them. Not for an instant
did my glance pass from them,--I could not have shut my eyes for
all the gold the world contains!--so that as they came closer I
had to look right down to what seemed to be almost the level of my
feet. And, at last, they reached my feet. They never paused. On a
sudden I felt something on my boot, and, with a sense of
shrinking, horror, nausea, rendering me momentarily more helpless,
I realised that the creature was beginning to ascend my legs, to
climb my body. Even then what it was I could not tell,--it mounted
me, apparently, with as much ease as if I had been horizontal
instead of perpendicular. It was as though it were some gigantic
spider,--a spider of the nightmares; a monstrous conception of
some dreadful vision. It pressed lightly against my clothing with