The Press., 1914-08-19
X NIGHT OF TERROR
Peculiar Experience With a Dead
 Iy Mexican TarantuIa.
PENNED IN A DARK BEDROOM.

The Trying Ordeal Through Which a Woman Tourist Passed In Hotel at l Vera Cruz-Awaiting the Bite That Meant Madness and Then Death. The tarantuIa is much larger in Mex | ico than in Italy. His four pairs of fuzzy legs, his speckled bulging belly,
 his abnormally fat head, armed with
 vicious nippers and equipped with eight eyes arranged in transverse rows, suf- flee to fill you with wholesome desire | to give him the right of way without ado.
 Owing to the fact that he has an un-
 welcome habit of leaving his own
 realm in the tropical vines to make
 sociable little visitations to the cor ners of your bedroom 1t had always been my custom to search every nook and crevice of my sleeping room be- fore retiring for the night. Twice had
 I seen native labOrers, peOns, ill the agony of death due to tarantula bite.
 So it was not surprising that this creeping thing headed my list of the | many dangers to be summed il Mex | icO.
 l had just reached Vera Cruz from Mexico City. very tired, and decided to
 seek my room early in the evening.
 which, indeed, is the only safe and proper thing for an unaccOmpanied
 woman in Mexico to do. That part of l the diligencias in which my room was located was evidently undergoing re-
 pairs, for pile of timbers was includ-
 ed in the furnishing of my apartments No particular reason occurred to me | why I should investigate this lumber and. little realizing that it might shel | ter lurking danger, I flung my weary
 head on the dirty pillow. But as I lay | quietly dozing off to sleep I suddenly
 heard a soft little noise, which one
 might describe as cross between 8 | hum and hiss.
 As a precaution against the many
 venomous things that creep and craw1
 even in the we'll beaten paths of Mex | icO had made a careful study of the l arachnids, to which class the tarantu las belong. I recognized that soft un l OstentatiOus warning that announced 6
 roommate as undesirable as one could | well wish.
 Cautiously I stretched out my hand | to see if by chance there were SOmt | matches on the little stand near my bed, with the result that I knocked thu
 unlighted candle upon the floor. Tha1
 was enough for my mettlesOme room
 mate; he had been personally insulteC by the noise, and suddenly in the ute
 darkness, that black stiffness whicl
 one feels in d strange room, detected
 sickening OdOr. the warning of th'
 angry tarantula.
 strained my ears to detect the soft characteristic click that the male, thu deadliest of the species, employs as { fancy frilI to his malicious song. M!
 blood chilled as I heard his muff1eC hum-click, hum-click, hum-apparent ly not three feet away. I held m!
 breath, incidentally my nose, and lay
 wondering how long it would be ere
 should feel his big fuzzy feet sneakinl
 up the side of my neck or before hi' | soft woolly body would light upon my Ehce. It was not at all comforting t l remember that one of a tarantula's ec
 centricities is to find his way to poin
 on the ceiling directly over the Objec | of his anger and then to drop uncere
 mOniOusly upon his victim.
 It was the only time in my life whe1 longed for tEp bliss of ignorance
 Would to heaven had not studied thi! nf hn Int
 had. Moreover, l had seen the aWfu effects of his worse than fatal bite whose work of destruction was merci lessIy long drawn out.
 If the bite of a male tarantula infect. large artery it throws the victim into dreadful state of craZed nerves. ThC incipient stages of the poisoning are ac companied by accentuated melancholia followed by shattering of the mental ity. On gradually absorbing the venom the unfortunate subject reels and raves in a mad whirl until he swoons iron
 pure exhaustion. The tarantella, the graceful Italian dance so often de scribed in musical literature, derives it's name from this hideOus poisoning.
 All this and more darted through my mind as I lay there in the darkness wondering if l, too, were doomed to die like d dervish. As the night wore on the buZzing grew less sedulous. lay motionless during the thousand years till dawn, which came at last, 8 divinely soft. blue, shimmering shaft of light, which made things faintly vis- ible Cautiously l drew myself up to a sitting posture and craned my neck in a searching survey about my chamber of horrors.
 There, in torture worse than mine, hung my roommate, four of his legs pinioned beneath the timbers. There he Spra wled. maimpd but angry pris- nner His eight eyes winked me a mil Itant Good morning." and forthwith returned the compliment with the slen- der shaft of my hatpin.-New York Snn