But Ben had seized an oar and now came down with a splash that sent a
shower of spray about and momentarily blinded them both.

"There! Look yonder, Ben!" cried Ralph. "Confound the luck!"

The spider was swiftly crawling up the bank, where it quickly
disappeared beneath a tussock.

"That beats all the creatures I ever seen," said Ben. "He must be the
great grandfather of all the spiders hereabout."

Mr. Duff, also awakened by the noise, now suggested that it was time
they were going on. While proceeding up stream Ralph related his own
and Ben's experience with the spider, whereat the mate laughed heartily.

"I am familiar with the species," said he. "True, they do look scary
enough, but, strange to say, they are perfectly harmless. Instead of
teeth, their mouth is supplied with a kind of suction apparatus by
which they suck the blood from smaller insects. But they cannot bite,
nor is their touch poisonous. There are other, smaller kinds of
spiders about here, however, whose bite is fatal."

"We were jist as bad scared as if it had been a rattlesnake," returned
Ben. "I could feel me bloomin' hair turnin' gray when the thing was
cocked upon me shoulder."

Towards night they came to a dozen or more small huts made of palm
leaves and elephant grass, from which issued a number of nearly naked
blacks, who made the air hideous with shouts of welcome.