As for the attorney-general, Curdie led to his door a huge spider,
about two feet long in the body, which, having made an excellent
supper, was full of webbing. The attorney-general had not gone to
bed, but sat in a chair asleep before a great mirror. He had been
trying the effect of a diamond star which he had that morning taken
from the jewel room. When he woke he fancied himself paralysed;
every limb, every finger even, was motionless: coils and coils of
broad spider ribbon bandaged his members to his body, and all to
the chair. In the glass he saw himself wound about with slavery
infinite. On a footstool a yard off sat the spider glaring at him.
Clubhead had mounted guard over the butler, where he lay tied hand
and foot under the third cask. From that cask he had seen the wine
run into a great bath, and therein he expected to be drowned. The
doctor, with his crushed leg, needed no one to guard him.
And now Curdie proceeded to the expulsion of the rest. Great men
or underlings, he treated them all alike. From room to room over
the house he went, and sleeping or waking took the man by the hand.
Such was the state to which a year of wicked rule had reduced the
moral condition of the court, that in it all he found but three
with human hands. The possessors of these he allowed to dress
themselves and depart in peace.
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