t 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
wonder