8o I N A G U A 



was very sorry that he could not help me further, but that 

 Richardson would probably make trouble if he turned our 

 property over to us— apparently the letter from the Secretary 

 of State and our other papers had made some impression— but 

 that he would do his utmost until he heard from Nassau. 



When I reached the chff again, staggering under a load of 

 canvas, rope and tin cans, Coleman was nowhere to be found. 

 Dropping the load on the ground I wiped the sweat from my 

 eyes and shouted. Soon he came plunging out of the bushes, 

 face beaming. Beckoning for me to come, he turned and disap- 

 peared between a clump of bay lavender and some lignum 

 vitae. I followed. He pointed ahead. Not fifty feet away, nes- 

 tling between two massive cacti, was a dwelUng, a tiny coral 

 and thatch hut. 



Somewhere from the list of books long since read and nearly 

 forgotten a passage hurtled out of the dim recesses of memory 

 and fixed itself at that moment on my mind. Homes, it said, 

 were not made for man but for the spiders. Man only leases 

 them for a while, builds them, fills their rooms with his voice, 

 with his laughter, with his tears, quarrels and angers, uses them 

 as a refuge against the elements, as a place to bear and rear his 

 children, to sleep in and be comfortable in— only in the end to 

 turn them over to their final inmates, the eight-legged spiders. 

 It is the fate of all houses if they are not claimed first by fire, 

 catastrophe or the destruction of war. Soon or late the gay 

 voices are stilled, gone away or forever hushed. Children like 

 birds leave the nest, old people die or go to greener fields, and 

 the spiders move in quietly to spin their webs, to draw gossa- 

 mer veils over the dust of things best forgotten. 



The spiders had long since claimed this house. 



A great yellow and black one slid silently to one side and 

 vanished over the lintel as we pushed open the creaking door. 

 Looking up I could see the faint iridescent gleam of its ocelli 



