TOMB GUARDIAN

 TOMB GUARDIAN

"Suddenly, he began to hear a faint sweeping or rustling noise approaching over the carpet. He turned half over, nothing to be seen. The room being, as I said, very fairly light by reason of the strong moonlight outside. It came to the side of the bed, then a pause, next a very slight stretching of the bedclothes over his legs towards the outside of the bed. Much as if a kitten had jumped up. Harry was not much affected by this but on the alert. The next phenomenon was the touch on the bare back of his neck of something bristly. So much so that it pricked the skin. He whipped over in the bed thoroughly frightened and to just time to see a very strange object against the white window blind before it disappeared. It was long and sharply crooked in the midst. He could only describe it by saying that it was like a very long finger covered thickly with short hairs. He was out of bed in a second, had a candle lighted and searched the room thoroughly. The door was fastened and the window shut and there was no sign of man or beast in any corner."

"And then straight upon that, two sharp points had been plunged into his neck. He had cried out and clutched with his hands at the spot only to feel something hairy, which pricked his fingers and seemed to melt away under them."

"'What in the world is this on the table in the picture? Why, it's an enormous spider.'"

"And so it was, painted there no doubt as the emblem of industry or avarice or both."

 M.R.James, Speaker Lenthall's Tomb