King Philip sat a little bent in his chair, apparently staring at a point in space, and not opening his lips except to drink.  But his presence filled the shadowy room, his large and yellowish face seemed to be all visible from every part of it, and his still eyes dominated everything and every one, except his brother.  It was as if the possession of some supernatural and evil being were stealing slowly upon all who were there; as if a monstrous spider sat absolutely motionless in the midst of its web, drawing everything within reach to itself by the unnatural fascination of its lidless sight—­as if the gentlemen in waiting were but helpless flies, circling nearer and nearer, to be caught at last in the meshes, and the Queen a bright butterfly, and Don John a white moth, already taken and soon to be devoured.  The dwarf thought of this in his corner, and his blood was chilled, for three queens lay in their tombs in three dim cathedrals, and she who sat at table was the fourth who had supped with the royal Spider in his web.  Adonis watched him, and the penetrating fear he had long known crept all through him like the chill that shakes a man before a marsh fever, so that he had to set his teeth with all his might, lest they should chatter audibly.  As he looked, he fancied that in the light of the waxen torches the King’s face turned by degrees to an ashy grey, and then more slowly to a shadowy yellow again, as he had seen a spider’s ugly body change colour when the flies came nearer, and change again when one was entangled in the threads.  He thought that the faces of all the people in the room changed, too, and that he saw in them the look that only near and certain death can bring, which is in the eyes of him who goes out with bound hands, at dawn, amongst other men who will see the rising sun shine on his dead face.  That fear came on the dwarf sometimes, and he dreaded always lest at that moment the King should call to him and bid him sing or play with words.  But this had never happened yet.  There were others in the room, also, who knew something of that same terror, though in a less degree, perhaps because they knew Philip less well than the jester, who was almost always near him.  But Don John sat quietly in his place, no more realizing that there could be danger than if he had been charging the Moors at the head of his cavalry, or fighting a man hand to hand with drawn swords.

But still the fear grew, and even the gentlemen and the servants wondered, for it had never happened that the King had not at last broken the silence at supper, so that all guessed trouble near at hand, and peril for themselves.  The Queen grew nervous and ceased to eat.  She looked from Philip to Don John, and more than once seemed about to speak, but recollected herself and checked the words.  Her hand shook and her thin young nostrils quivered now and then.  Evil was gathering in the air, and she felt it approaching, though she could not tell whence it came.  A sort