The Bottineau pioneer. (Bottineau, N.D.) 1885-1895, 1893-05-06

not less hardened by evil, sat calmly
waiting. Ten minutes passed. Sud-
denly the dwarf appeared on the table
in the same posture from which he
had vanished. =
ave seen the youth-a noble
youth, virtue and goodness wrought
into his countenance. A brave, good
heart, he hath, and you would stop
its beat. So be it. He is now court.
ing the maid who will become his
wife when winter melts-a, beauteous,
graceful maid. as good and pure and
sweet as-as neither you nor 1 will
ev2 be, Hargon. Ha, ha! You would
break the maids heart by killing her
youth. So be it. We will make the
spider. 1 see about the youths eyes
traces of coming disease. He will
sicken with fever ere the new years
a month gone. We must have the
spider ready. You will kill him, will
you; and break the maids hearth"
Torture him; the maid is naught
to me-" growled the gobelin. death
to them both. But look you here,
imp. Why doth the record say ]
must make two %spiders?"
He reached for the book to find the
words, and the dwarf replied with
solemn insolence:
There must be two, Hargon, be.
cause-there must be two.
"You have not answered my ques-
tion," growled Hargon.
mo, I have not, have IP" tainted
Grissikin. But of that anon. Now to
work. 1t requires All grown spiders
and nineteen young, with ninety-nine
cockroaches for each death spider.
These may be caught. The task will
not be hard. They are to your hand
here. These must be pounded into a
pulp. Out of this pulp you must
fashion two spiders like that" reach
ing out his pointed toe and tapping
the book. They must then be dried,
and at the proper time my master
will give them life. Ho! no! then,
to the glorious task!"
We cannot describe the creation of
the Death Spider; the dizziness Of
the imp in capturing the insects
Hargon's disgust at the loathsome
task, or Grissikin's jesting impudence
in keeping his bloodthirstiness to
the working pitch. Nor can we stop
to tell how, when the spiders we're at
last fashioned, the dwarf simply
struck the wall a sharp blow, and the
glowing mouth of a furnace opened,
into which the insects were thrust to
dry; nor how, in time, they came
forth, terrible, grewsome objects,
lacking only the venomous life for
which Hargon had called them into
being.
Neither can we detail Grissikin's
numerous visits of espial upon the
doomed youth during the period OF
preparation. nor the gloating reports
he brought back of FiChington's
beauty; how it would be dimmed and
his radiant prospects of a happy and
prosperous life cut short; nor the
leering delight with which he told
how he had heard the maids sweet
confessions of her happiness and her
precious hopes of the joy of their
coming marriage; o how he finally
brought back word to the triumphant
Hargon that the young man had been
stricken with a dangerous fever.
The tale must leap all these to q
bitter January night, when a furious
wind roared over the great city and
whirled snow-11akes down into the
streets, seeming in wilfulness to drive
them in densest clouds into Seven
Dials, as if to render more bewilder-
ing and awful it's surrounding neigh
borhood. In his filthy apartment
Hargon sat at his table, with the obi.
Gus insects before him, their black,
polished backs fitfully rejecting the
rays of the 1uttering candle-a pic
ture of a grizzly, murderous human
fiend.
A neighboring clock struck eight,
and instantly Grissikin appeared in
his favorite place and posture upon
the table, leering at Hargon and
wriggling his taper foot forward as ii
to prod the ogre. Then, picking up
n of the spiders and squirting at
it, he said:
THE night is here. We must call
my master to make these beautiful
creatures crawl and one of them spin
it's deaths web. Fithington lies ill
and his maid will be heart-broke ere
the dawn. Say you SOP"
"Yes," Hargon assented, deep in
his heartless chest.
"Ho. then, master, send life to our
SPIDERS" cried the imp, in a thin,
piping voice, in which O rang sub
tie impudence toward the demon be-
fore him, and placing the spider upon
the table beside the other. ~
Instantly there came a pulsating of
the thick, redolent air of the room, a
swaying of the house as if the earth
were sinking. The candle flame flick
cred into a tiny blue point, and from
the ceiling directly above the table
two tiny globes, spinning rapidly and
shedding incandescent light, fell, one
upon each of the spiders, where,
after a few moments Of rotation, they
sank into the bodies of the insects.
Then the candlelight burst to it's or
binary flame. and the spiders, crook
ing their long legs. we're seen to be
crawling upon the table.
Beautiful, are they not?" jeered
tho dwarf, pointing to them. Sand
think how they will spin the life from
that youth. and break the maids
heart! Gloriously beautiful, Hargon.
Are you readyp"
'.Ready?-eager," snarled the COB.
elm.
s.Wait."
He sank from sight, but reappeared