1 Setting the Scene

Daddy Longlegs (An Snáthaid Mhór)

PART ONE:
Setting the Scene - the Spider and the Fly.
Incorporating an Invitation to High Tea and a Modicum of Philosophical and Linguistic Trivia.

-You might pause to consider, said the Spider smiling a toothy smile –that there has been considerable disinformation put about in the locality by idle and malicious gossip regarding myself.

It was one of those breathless summer days on the high bog, and the Spider and the Fly faced each other under an awning provided by the feathery reeds that grew along the edges of a small pool. The sky above them was as blue as a blackbird’s egg but as the hours passed it was starting to fade to grassy yellow in the distance where the marsh gave way to the russet scraw of turf cuttings and the afternoon to the approach of tea-time.

-I may be black and hairy and perhaps ugly in the eyes of some, continued the Spider. –and without question I am endowed with a superfluity of legs compared to a fly. But please, do not deny me my good points. Many of them are close to the prerequisites of genius. I am skilful. I am industrious. I am possessed of cunning and mental acuity. Above all I am a thinker. And look, my teeth are as beautifully enamelled and white as the tusks of the great trumpeting walrus. On top of this, he added, -there is the question of charm.

-You don’t say, said the Fly, without any.

She sat on a leaf high above the pool, sunning her hairy rumpkin in the late afternoon sun and trying to scratch off a sticky and unpleasant something that had attached itself to her back legs.

Far below a rusty carp broke for a moment the surface of the pool and gulping down a mouthful of air, flopped back disappointed under the green water. The Fly winced and ceased scratching her leg as she inched a little higher up the reed stem.

-I would say then, said the Spider, -that there is no reason in the world to refuse my invitation. The kettle is always on, and I have biscuits. And should you wish a proper meal, he added with a chuckle, -I am utterly bad in the kitchen.

At the mention of food the Fly shifted her position once again and stole a quick look behind her. The flicker of a shadow, caused no doubt by this sudden movement upon the leaf on which she balanced, darkened for a moment the Spider’s shining web and caused a tiny shudder to run through its hair trigger cordage.

-Come up for tea, said the Spider. –I crave conversation and crumpets. A thinker’s task is a lonely one. Without the support of company and the input of a second mind it is sometimes unbearable. It is no fun to be a philosopher, you know, hanging all day on one’s ownsome between the seen and the unseen and never being quite sure which is which.

The Fly rolled her eyes round her head like a chameleon. She noticed that this Spider was impeccably tailored for an older gentleman. It made her very suspicious. She looked down and spat a gobbet of yellow phlegm into the water beneath and smirked as the red carp rose and snapped and swallowed and sank out of sight with a sick look.

-Rubber face, she muttered, and, turning to the Spider, said rudely -You think I’m some kind of oik? My mother told me never to trust a gentleman in a tuxedo at teatime. She said it was almost as inauspicious as a velvet smoking jacket at dinner and worse than a dressing gown closed with a tasselled cord of silk instead of buttons at the hour of milk and biscuits. It reeks of good breeding and bad intentions, both of them inevitably pathways to ruination.

-Ruination, chuckled the Spider, –how quaint!

But the Fly went on with a frown. -Besides I can see without you telling me that you have eight legs. There are six legged bugs in this bog I wouldn’t touch with a barge pole, and they think they are family. Do you imagine I’d have anything to do with you, with your a horrid hairy speckled extras?

-You may not know it, said the Spider patiently, but eight is a magic number. Written sideways it is the sign for Infinity. Have you heard of infinity, Fly?

-Every fly has heard of infinity, she retorted with a grunt. –It is a way of counting our race. We are described in the better almanacs as an infinity of flies. We are many in number, you know. Like the sand on the seashore or the stars in the sky or whatever.

-An infinity of flies, said the Spider, -I suppose you mean like a cacophony of frogs or a murder of crows.

- A murder of spiders, more likely, said the Fly, who, like many of the non-philosophising classes believed religiously in gossip and vaguely remembered something off-colour about arachnids. Unfortunately she could never remember the details and invariable repeated any story she heard back to front which was often the cause of great resentment both to the gossiped about and the gossips themselves.

-Apart from that, she went on with a sneer -I have heard the expression a clutter of spiders. I suppose it means you spiders are like rats: if I can see one of you in front of me there must be twenty or thirty out of sight cluttering up the undergrowth.

-Tut tut, said the Spider, -but I notice you are misinformed about your good race. It was never spoken of as an infinity of flies. The correct usage is a business of flies.

- A business? sniffed the Fly.

-Libellously so, said the Spider,–a business.

He continued. –There must have been a prejudiced few in the past who imagined that flies had vile and unhygienic habits and did their unsanitary business anywhere they pleased. -Slanderous, he added, ingratiatingly, -but the dirt seems to have stuck. Together with such gems as a puke-fest of bluebottles and a piss-party of midges and a chunder of…

-Enough! interrupted the Fly.

-Well, to set the matter straight about myself at least, said the Spider, - allow me to inform you that here there is no clutter but only a solitude of spiders. For spiders are solitary animals. You may talk about a turbulence of starlings or an exaltation of larks but the truth of the matter is that at the heart of this beautiful handcrafted web there is only a solitude of spiders. That solitude, he added, -is me.

-Of course, he murmured, as if by afterthought, -if we were to dine together we could rectify that. -And I have kippers, he went on,-with gorgonzola sauce. He smiled now with the focussed unction of a professional ringmaster and beckoned. –If not dinner, high tea at least?

-Gawgonzola sauce! The Fly spat again, this time carefully into the palm of her hand and for a moment seemed greatly engrossed in an analysis of the results. The augury apparently clear, she turned back to the Spider and said

-Hey ho! Time flies. And so must I! Nice gear! Nice try! Nice talking to you. Nice…

Abruptly niceties ceased, for at that moment an orange and purple dragonfly rose from the surface of a water lily leaf in the green pool below and hovered for a moment on the wings of appetite, all jaws and teeth and expectancy as if daring the Fly to take flight and enter its airy killing zone.

The Fly began to wonder if it might not be worthwhile taking a little walk somewhere else on foot, but before she could make a decision the Dragonfly’s wings flashed like a Samurai sword in the sun and he was gone.

-Shall we dine then, smiled the Spider, -you and I, together?

2 Grub and Spirits

PART TWO:
Grub and Spirits. Introduction to a Cloud of Midges and a Cloud of Unknowing. In the University of Hard Knocks is there Room for Questions? Are there ever any Answers?


Peering into the space vacated by the glittering Dragonfly the Spider cleared his throat and said -It appears to my mind, tempered as it is to razor sharp perspicuity by the refining fires of philosophical enquiry…

-Come again, interrupted the Fly, less stridently than usual, for the Dragonfly’s attention had left her somewhat in a state of shock.

-It appears to me that my web is a much safer place to pass a few hours than your flimsy and exposed little reed.

-What do you mean? The Fly gave a bleat, trying to compose herself. She looked behind her and bending her head blew her nose noisily into the hairs of her armpit.

-I mean, said the Spider, that the world is a dangerous place.

There was a pause and for a moment nothing could be heard but the rustling of the reeds and the quiet lapping of ripples in the shallows of the pool below. Then the Spider spoke.

-Solitude is the hallmark of the philosopher as I have explained, he said smoothly, -but let me reiterate. I have been thinking that perhaps two heads might be better than one, not only for the light hearted ping-pong that is a frivolous dinner party debate among genteel sophisticates, but also when it comes to solving the Great Questions.

-Questions? the Fly said, -what questions?

-The Questions of the Universe, said the Spider.

- University things is beyond me, said the Fly. –for when it comes to questions, I have rarely never had any of that kind of thing and it seems to me I rarely never have any now.

-No, said the Spider sadly, -most people rarely never do. He was thinking: -in the University of Hard Knocks there are no Questions and no Answers. There is just grub.

Out loud he said -although a quick ferreting around under the cobwebs of your rarely never little brain might surprise even you.

At the mention of cobwebs the Fly sneezed violently. An annoyance of midges rose in a brown cloud from the foliage about her and then, realising there was nothing in it for them, faded away like a puff of brown smoke.

The Spider gave a deep sigh and his web throbbed around him in sympathy like the strings of a harp. He looked first to the right and then to the left and said -Two short glances around this vicinity have led me to the conclusion that eating alone without the encouragement of a guest and thus deprived of the witty repartee of a properly constituted dinner party is an ugly and depressing thing, but it is nothing compared with the hunger for the Unknowing.

-Food feeds the body, said the Fly unknowingly, and as you are so full of knowing let me now be silent.

-A good choice, said the Spider, for it is well known that silence feeds the soul and in transcendental circumstances even leads it to where it doesn’t know it wants to go.

Had the Fly wished to meditate on this cryptic utterance, which was unlikely, since she already didn’t know where she wanted to go and a few minutes before had been utterly convinced she knew where she didn’t want to go, it was now too late. The opportunity had departed, for at that very moment there was a small commotion in an adjoining clump of reeds and a gaudy personage poked his head into sight.

3 First Appearance of the Gadfly

PART THREE:
First Appearance of the Gadfly. The Spider’s Warning: The Junker is Junk. An Unsuitable Suitor?

The Fly giggled. It was uncharacteristic of her. Suddenly she spun around and began a hurried preening of her bedraggled extremities.

The newcomer clearly had eyes in his head. He took in the lie of the land in a flash and looked sharply at the Spider hanging in his web.

-Nice threads, he nodded with a touch of ambiguity, and immediately and not without a hint of gallantry addressed himself to the Fly.

-Gnädige Frau, he said, inclining his head in a teutonicly snappy gesture, - how delighted I am to discover you!

He raised his gaze and turning his eyes like a heliotrope in her direction, winked salaciously through a thousand polished monocles.

-Well, thought the Fly, -who is this then?

-I, said the newcomer, with the riposte of a sabre wielding Captain of the Hussars, -am the Gadfly.

He emerged now completely from the rush stalks and bowed again, this time a full and aristocratic bending from the waist accompanied by some elegant and sophisticatedly incomprehensible hand ballet. It was as if flattery enough to enchant a whole hareem was being lavishly fanned towards a single individual.

The Fly was aware of a crushing beauty. The Gadfly smiled out from a stern and muscular visage, moustachioed to the hilt. He wore a gleaming black neckerchief studded with what appeared to be diamond pins. Below this his wrestler’s chest bulged beneath a turquoise breastplate from which dangled an extraordinary array of brightly coloured ribbons and important looking medals. Fine veined wings of opal hue, antennae of iridescent gauze and a blue flashing cloak which winked and shimmered like a lighthouse against the shadows of the rush bed completed this first, and in the Fly’s opinion, very favourable impression.

It seemed to the Fly that the sun was suddenly brighter, the air sweeter and the musty woodland smells more enticing than they had ever been before.

The Spider, however, hanging grumpily in his glossy web, grimaced.

-There is not much to this one, he muttered, under his breath.

-He’s all blab and no pig meat. There is not even a bite here to feed the body, and as for feeding the soul, well, this flyboy is nothing but armour and certificates. No juice in his flesh. No broth in his bones. I think he’d be better off as fish food.

A heavy plop resounded from the pool below. It appeared the ruby carp agreed.

-Take care, Fly, said the Spider with gravity. –Be cautious and keep your wits close! Mother Nature is a singular mother. On Monday if she wants porridge for breakfast she’ll suck out her own children’s brains!

–Brains, said the Fly looking round at him in alarm. -Ugh! And what do this single mother do Tuesdays?

-If you are not coming to dinner, said the Fly irritably, go and read the scandal sheets yourself.

-What for? said the Fly.

-They will tell you, said the Spider impatiently, -that Nature is red in tooth and claw.

-Well read, he repeated, -in both tooth and in claw! And if you can’t read, he added patronisingly, -forget the paper. Just open those bug-eyes of yours and look about you!

For a moment the Fly abandoned her appraisal of the Gadfly and looked about her doubtfully. However she was finding it increasingly hard to keep her attention from creeping back to the newcomer.

The Spider paused and added testily -and please, do stop ogling that loathsome warble fly! Didn’t your interfering mother tell you to beware of a suitor who wears his heart on his sleeve? Everyone knows it is a totally inappropriate location for a heart.

He went on. – I despair! This place is no a place for a Thinker. Civilisation has passed it by. Look! The uncultivated natives of the vicinity all have mouths in perfect working order. Yet do they ever think about the amazing capabilities inherent in that breathtaking piece of divine engineering?

-They don’t, I’m sure, said the Fly, taking a deep breath, and trying to fathom what on earth he was talking about. All this talk of claws and teeth made her wonder if the Dragonfly really had gone for good.

The Spider twanged angrily on a strand of his cobweb.

-The sinuous and explosive delights of language when put to the task of prising open the secrets of creation! Of unlocking the mysteries of the gods! Let alone all the rhetoric and the poetry!

-The hat trick and the pottery, echoed the Fly vaguely, trying to catch up. But she was now beginning to fidget. It was unlike her to bother her head with etiquette, but it did seem that the Gadfly was now being rudely neglected.

-They don’t, she repeated, hoping that that might be the end of it.

-No, Fly, you are right, barked the Spider, -they DON’T. These gross and wriggling slime-pit peasants all around us use their pitiful apologies for a mouth only for one thing! For EATING!

The Fly jumped, and looked across at the Gadfly impatiently. But her impatience was nothing compared with that of her newfound suitor. His mouth, far from gasping for food, was quivering with the need to get a word in edgeways.

4 The Gadfly’s Speech

PART FOUR:
The Gadfly’s Speech, and how his Soliloquy Gives the Lie to the Spider’s Opinion on the Common People’s Use of the Mouth Organ. The Tormentor Displays.

The Gadfly took a deep lungful of air. He had no time for the pettiness of organs, mouth or otherwise. He himself had a trumpet to blow. It was his own.

After the outburst the Spider had paused for a moment to allow his breath to return and the Gadfly, seizing the opportunity to squeeze a word in edgeways, squeezed it in, and finding no opposition to its passage, grasped it firmly in both his lungs and shoved it in all the way. Then he followed it with a whole dictionary.

-Madam Butterfly, if I may be so bold in my description, he began, -allow me to introduce myself. As you can see, he smirked -I am no lowborn dung heap botfly. Back in the real world they call me the Tormenter.

He paused, gauging the effect of this grandiose title upon his listener. His eyes glittered with the sharpness of a handful of broken glass.

-As for ‘loathsome warble fly’, he added turning to the Spider and squeezing his lips into a thin and deadly line until they resembled the quivering blade of a razor in the hands of Sweeney Todd the Barber, -well, there soon may be a score to settle on that score!

-Tusk tusk, said the Spider, sucking air between his teeth and slapping his gums together in imitation of an aphid learning to blow bubbles.

The Gadfly withdrew his attention from the Spider as a murderer might withdraw his dagger from his victim’s gut, and turned it skilfully towards the Fly, who was sitting open-mouthed in amazement. By now she was drooling a little.

-Understand, fair Demoiselle, he continued, -that just as you also clearly appear to be, I am of Noble and Ancient Race.

-My ancestors caused dinosaurs in the rampant fern forests of aeons past to trumpet despairingly and lash their tails with brute fury against fly-bitten flank until they dripped red with their own blood.

-Mee oh my, gasped the Fly, wiping the back of her forearm across her mouth.

The Gadfly continued.

-I myself, as infant, stampeded herds of the choicest of thoroughbred Arabians, driving them wild with my goad, poisoning them with my barbed tongue until they brayed like the untutored onager of the desert bellowing strange monosyllables stolen from the crass vocabulary of the common ass.

-I have caused turf cutters to go mad and leap to their doom in bottomless bog holes and yea, they even praised God for granting them release.

-I have upturned the extravagant picnic parties of the nouveau-riche and driven even the most well-appointed noblewoman to tear off her serf-stitched knickers and disgrace herself and her lineage in the full and undeniable light of day with frenetic screams and Tarantella writhings and the strange and corybantic lewdness of a pagan sorceress.

By now the Gadfly had risen from his reed stalk and was hovering in the air before them bathed in the magnetic assurance of an operatic tenor who is delivering his seventh encore of the evening and expects the imminent accolade of an eighth. He was clearly enjoying immensely the wrapt attention of the whole Universe and perhaps even that of other and parallel universes far beyond the one we know.

-I have caused proud generals on the reviewing stand to slap their own faces and swear with unimaginably alliterative foulness in the presence of their loyal troops and even of their own mothers.

-Wherever I go I panic the elephant and stampede the rhinoceros and torment the crocodile until they jump through the bamboo forests like young frightened gazelles and soar into the air in their torment as do the flying fish of the far and incomprehensible continents of the East.

-Even the pike sheathes its razor teeth and hides its stern eye beneath the safe skin of the water when I come visiting its pool to drink!

During all this performance the Fly remained spellbound. All trace of Thought and the Great Questions had evaporated from the surface of her mind.

-I wouldn’t mind having his maggots, she thought. –he looks mighty enough to father a plague of locusts!

She was by now was so captivated by the display being enacted for her benefit that she failed to notice what was happening behind her in the silver web.

5 A Good Feed or a Good Snog?

PART FIVE:
In which the Fly cannot decide which Instant Gratification is more instant: A Good Feed or a Good Snog?

Patiently the spider had begun to spread out a large silken table cloth in the centre of the sticky surface of his web. On it he was placing an array of succulent treats, each one of them dear to a fly’s heart and extravagant to a fly’s taste buds.

-Life, he said a little under his breath as he did so, -is short for us all. And as for you, sweet flibberty-gibbet, you may not know it, but in the best of circumstances you have only the briefest of spans in which to fulfil the promise of yours.

-Promise?

Although fascinated by He Himself, the Fly was beginning to find the Gadfly’s soliloquy a bit long.

-Less words and a little action, crossed her mind and as her thoughts wandered she became aware of a number of delightful odours wafting in her direction from the Spider’s web.

Up to this point her appetite had been roused by attractions far from culinary. All of a sudden she remembered hunger. That is the problem with instant gratifications. If there is a choice of two only one can be instant.

The Spider continued to fiddle with his display. He spoke in a low tone, which attracted the Fly’s attention but at the same time concealed the content of his words.

-The briefest of spans. Hardly worth it really, don’t you think? I on the other hand do have a contribution to make to the world. Logic commands that I go on for a while longer. We must know who we are. We must ask where we come from. We must find out where we are going. We must answer the Big Question. We must ask WHY? We are Thinkers after all.

He was aware that the Fly was listening. He raised his voice.

-Who are you, for example, he said to her, -Where did
you come from?

-I know the answer to that, said the Fly.

Behind her the Gadfly’s voice was becoming less and less distinct. His words were fading imperceptibly into the rhythmic rhubarb of rustling and rattling and rubbing that was the reed bed’s teatime conversation.

For the Fly the odour of food rose now and filled her horizon like a sudden summer thundercloud. With satisfaction the Spider noticed that she was becoming a little wet around the chops.

-A good dribbler shows a keen appetite, he muttered, his eyes flickering softly in the shadows. And hunger silences doubt.

The Fly interrupted his train of thought.

-I know the answer to your question, she said.

–Who am I? -I am a fly!

The smell of the banquet was drawing her irresistibly towards him.

-I am defined by my occupation.

She stopped suddenly, for the unfamiliar exertion of thinking this thought had left her quite out of breath. She wondered for a second if she might not choke on the volume of vocabulary required by her mouth to express it. Her mouth however had its own agenda. It hadn’t even missed a dribble. With relief she continued.

-I fly, Spider, she said, -therefore I am.

-Am what? Said the Spider.

-Am a fly! Amn’t I? If I crept I would be a creep.

The Spider smiled.

-Would you indeed? he muttered, and crept closer to the edge of the web.

-I suppose if you hopped you would be a hop. We could make beer out of you.

But this time the Fly’s appetite, in the food department at least, was rising on wings of delightful gluttony. Conversation, she now understood was a dinner invitation.

-And as for where I come from, Mr Spider, -I know that too. I come from Death.

-Death, indeed, said the Spider. –Now at least we are getting somewhere, for Death is always a good starting point when we wish to consider the Whats and the Wherefores and the Whys and the Whatevers!

6 Gluttony and Libido: A Difficult Choice!

PART SIX:
In which the Fly must decide between gluttony and libido or whether it is possible to integrate them. In which the Spider must decide if he is to eat or educate the Fly. And what might be in it for him? In which the plot (in Part Seven) leads up to the terrible and unexpected re-appearance of the Dragonfly, which scuppers all plans and contracts hitherto agreed on and decided about. In which I introduce a poem.

All might have been as it should have been from this point on. But the best plans of mice and men......well, this is equally true in the case of the smallest of bugs and the largest of flying Hefferlumpiae and other Mammaloptera and extends even to the winged Mytholopopolatls. It goes equally for Spiders, Flies, Gadflies and Carp and all species and every genus of terrestrial, aerial and aquatic creature whether Nemotodinous, Diptherial or Helicopterous.

Let me digress now for a moment as I gather my thoughts and reel in my memory and re-arrange the thread of my composition preparatory to spinning the further chapters of my story. And while I do, an apposite piece of verse from the ancient annals of Professor Absalom the Younger to break the tension and allow you to go and refill your coffee cup.

Daddy Longlegs

Don’t be frightened! I’m not scary, although I’m black and hairy,
And I run about on lots and lots of legs!
If you hang about and wait, you’ll find there’s only eight,
And they make me very nimble on me pegs!
So I take it very poorly to be called a Creepy Crawly!
I am anything but that, as you can see!
I’m not a creepy sort of blighter,
So don’t say: Ooooer! A Spider!
I’m Daddy Longlegs! Come on up! We’ll have some tea!

I’m afraid my web, (as if it mattered!) is a little torn and tattered.
My last guest, um, seemed to struggle quite a bunch!
I’d invited him for dinner, but he said there must have been a
Big mistake! So I invited him instead for lunch!
But don’t let this put you off! I may sound a little gruff!
But there’s no one kinder or more gentle here than me!
(There’s no one here but me!)
And if you think my web might hide a
Great Big Hairy Hungry Spider,
Well, come on up to Daddy Longlegs and we’ll see!

If I seem to sit and grin as I now invite you in,
It’s that I want us to be friends, the very best!
Oh! My head is in a spin! How very long it’s been
Since such a plump, er, I mean, since such a guest!
Come! Come! Please do not pause. Let these gently smiling jaws
Welcome you into this humble web of mine!
And if my grin gets slowly wider like a Great Big Hungry Spider,
Well, Daddy Longlegs says: It must be time to dine!

7 Second Appearance of the Dragonfly

PART SEVEN
Second Appearance of the Dragonfly. Lucifer ex Machina.

And then, with the disquieting truth of a dream dissolving into wakefulness, the Dragonfly emerged stealthily from behind an innocent looking marsh marigold. He rose and hovered inches from the Gadfly’s nose, staring coldly into his face. There was an icy malevolence about him now and he seemed to brim with cruelty.

A silence descended abruptly upon the woodland. All that could be heard, and barely, was the rustle of six wings treading air. The moment seemed balanced on a leaf slowly bending under its own weight.

Beside the reed fringed edges of the pool, penetrated still by a few slanting beams of afternoon sunlight, the water, translucent, brown and succulent as clear onion soup, began to disgorge life in all the multitudinous and strangely sculpted manifestations that it nourished.

Ticks and water boatmen, amoebic glop with brains usually switched only to reproduction, mouths without bodies and bodies without mouths, a universe of sliding wriggling creeping floating piggybacking backbiting slurping things and thinglets began to range themselves slowly around the arena drawn to carnage like spectators at an accident. Simply, they smelled blood.

Those without teeth in mouths that hitherto could do little more than suck marvelled at the two gladiators’ huge and glittering fangs. Those as yet without wings shuddered in expectation of the coming aerodynamic fireworks and slime larvae with nothing more than buds on their shoulders, peered nervously rearwards, wondering if the excitement and example might suddenly cause their own wings to sprout, and whether or not it would hurt.

The Gadfly turned his eyes towards the Fly, and they sparkled with arrogant confidence.

-After I have won, he murmured, -I myself will kill and carry to your feet a whole colony of rats to suffice as the nursery for our progeny.

-Furthermore, he added, but before he could add anything either further or even more to this addendum a terrible rattling sound arose from the Dragonfly’s tessellated wings like a drum roll before an execution and cut him off abruptly.

The latter was indeed of monstrous proportions. The Gadfly hovered before it like a tiny buzzing moon held in place within the gravity of a massive celestial orb. Slowly the Dragonfly spread its wings out before it in the manner of an orator enfolding the attention of a vast public. They glistened with martial colours, with challenge and with threat. They seemed to embrace the whole battlefield.

Its body curved back and up and away like some great aerial scorpion, segmented, and moving jerkily in yellow and purple and black. Rays of sunlight seemed to stick to the poisonous looking plates, unable to continue on their way to the earth. The eyes were huge, cold and opaque, reflecting nothing, giving nothing away. They seemed to have no colour of their own and to be focussed on somewhere else. The massive jaws looked as if they could have crushed a tortoise. They slid backwards and forward and from side to side, as if, before the terrible coup de grace, there was still more sharpening to be done. They brought to mind the blades of a threshing machine.

The six legs, hairy and tapered, were armoured and half curled beneath a heavy thorax and each was tipped with a sharp black hook. They hung indolently, however, almost relaxed, as if utterly sure that this second deadly arsenal would never be needed.

The two began to circle each other.

The spectators stared upwards, watching and waiting, hoping for the utmost dental ferocity.