of tension took possession of every one, like what people feel in southern countries when the southeast wind blows, or when, almost without warning, the fresh sea-breeze dies away to a dead calm and the blackness rises like a tide of pitch among the mountains of the coast, sending up enormous clouds above it to the pale sky, and lying quite still below; and the air grows lurid quickly, and heavy to breathe and sultry, till the tempest breaks in lightning and-thunder and drenching rain.

In the midst of the brewing storm the dwarf saw only the Spider in its web, illuminated by the unearthly glare of his own fear, and with it the frightened butterfly and the beautiful silver moth, that had never dreamed of danger.  He shrank against the hangings, pressing backwards till he hurt his crooked back against the stone wall behind the tapestry, and could have shrieked with fear had not a greater fear made him dumb.  He felt that the King was going to speak to him, and that he should not be able to answer him.  A horrible thought suddenly seized him, and he fancied that the King had seen him slip the letter into Don John’s glove, and would ask for it, and take it, and read it—­and that would be the end.  Thrills of torment ran through him, and he knew how it must feel to lie bound on the rack and to hear the executioner’s hands on the wheel, ready to turn it again at the judge’s word.  He had seen a man tortured once, and remembered his face.  He was sure that the King must have seen the letter, and that meant torment and death, and the King was angry also because the court had cheered Don John.  It was treason, and he knew it—­yet it would have been certain death, too, to refuse to obey Dona Ana.  There was destruction on either side, and he could not escape.  Don John had not read the writing yet, and if the King asked for it, he would probably give it to him without a thought, unopened, for he was far too simple to imagine that any one could accuse him of a treasonable thought, and too boyishly frank to fancy that his brother could be jealous of him—­above all, he was too modest to suppose that there were thousands who would have risked their lives to set him on the throne of Spain.  He would therefore give the King the letter unopened, unless, believing it to be a love message from some foolish woman, he chose to tear it up unread.  The wretched jester knew that either would mean his own disgrace and death, and he quivered with agony from head to foot.

The lights moved up and down before his sight, the air grew heavier, the royal Spider took gigantic proportions, and its motionless eyes were lurid with evil It was about to turn to him; he felt it turning already, and knew that it saw him in his corner, and meant to draw him to it, very slowly.  In a moment he should fall to the floor a senseless heap, out of deadly fear—­it would be well if his fear really killed him, but he could not even hope for that.  His hands gripped the hangings on each side of him as he shrank and crushed his deformity against the wall.  Surely the King was taming his head.  Yes—­he was right.  He felt his short hair rising on his scalp and unearthly sounds screamed in his ears.  The terrible eyes were upon him now, but he could not move hand or foot—­if he had been nailed to the wall to die, he could not have been so helpless.