WORSE THAN THE STAKE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2683, 21 September 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

WORSE THAN THE STAKE.

(New York Sun.)

Wk had camped down on the plains of Texas ono noon to boil a cup of coffee and get a bite to eat, and while Private Maloney was getting the coffee ready three or four of the men stretched out for a quarter of an hour's sleep. There were seven of us, United States dragoons, searching for some horses that had broken away, and ' Big George,' as we called him, who was a sergeant, was in command. I was very wide awake, having caught sight of a snake moving off as wo came up, and as the sergeant lay on his back, his face sheltered from the. sun, I looked him over and admired his proportions. He was a man who stood exactly 6ft. tall in his stockings, weighed 21S pounds, and it was no trick .'it nil for him to take two of tho strongest men in the regiment and hold them at arm's length or dance them round like puppets. It might have been ten minutes after he lay down that I suddenly caught sight of a tarantula on his breast—the largest and most horrible looking specimen I ever saw, and I lived for seven years among them. The sergeant had on the regulation cavalry jacket, and it was buttoned all the way up. He lay on the broad of his back, arms down beside him, and I had no sooner caught sight of the big spider than I saw that the man's eyes, which I could see under his red handkerchief, were open. Fie saw the tarantula perhaps before I did. I turned my head to the right, and Malonoy, who stood upright at the fire, was looking at the sergeaut, with face as white as snow. I turned to the left, and the two other men, who had not sought sleep, were also gazing in horror. Not one of us dared move. Should we dc so the spider might spring away in the alarm, but the chances are that he would bite before doing so. I was only a foot away from the sergeant's feet and on a line with his face, and I could look into his eyes and road his thoughts. He was a gamo man. He had been tested over and over, but never in such a manner. How would he stand the ordeal ? The spider had a curiosity regarding the buttons on tho jacket. He hovered over the fifth one from the top for three or four minutes. I road in the srrueant's eyes surprise, repugnance, and calculation. 1 cnrefully watched the muscles of his face. Ho might as well have been dead for all the movement I could detect.

Now the epider moves up a button — back two. Those shining metals are a now sight to him. As ho movjs down, I read relief in tho sergeant's eyiv. As lie moves up again, I read anxiety. Not a finger moves. His chest heaves, as regularly as the beats of a clock.

Now tho spider moves up ,to tho second button from tho top and shakes himsolf nervously. He is right under tho sergeant's clean shaved chin, a.nd not over si foot from his eyes. Now fear comes to tho man's eyes, and I see beads of perspiration start out on his big red hands. He has been hemmed in by Indians, chased by hungry wolves, lost on tho trackless plains without losing his nerve. It is going now. The spider shakes itself, and the look of fear gives place to one of terror. Wo know, and tho sergeant knows that the insect is angered, and that its next movo will bo upward.

The coffee is boiling over into the fire, and two or three of the horses are looking at us in an iuterroirativo way, as if puzzled at our attitudes. I fairly acho to shout—to spring up—to do something ; but I daro not move a finger.

Flash ! The groat spider jumps into tho centro of the handkerchief spread over the sergeant's face, and glides hero and thero in wonderment. The sergeant's ayos express hope. Tho horrible thing may leap from his face to the earth. No ! It crawls slowly down to the lower edge of the handkerchief, and the sergeant's eyes speak horror and desperation, and his hands are as wet as if plnnired into a bucket of water. Now the spider crawls off the handkerchief on to the sergeant's chin, and for thirty seconds is entirely motionless.

The man is doomed, His eyes tell me si. His soul is sick with horror, but . what nerve to hold himself down and take the chances ! Not one man in a ." million could do it. Not a muscle moves ; not the slightest change in the heave of '' his breast. He is in more torture than <r the man at the stake : but his nerve is not 0 broken. The spider suddenly shakes itself, ° inflicts its bite, and is gone like a flash, J springing clear over one of the other men. Then, with a scream of despair, the , sergeant springs up, eyes full of terror and f;ico distorted, and goes rushing away over the plains. We saddle up and pursue ; but he dodges, turns, and twists about, and it is an hour before we can citch him, Then he sinks helplessly ' down, and inside of two hours he is 9 dead.