饒命饒命 Spare Our Lives
一個個攢著手腳，索著頭，只叫：「饒命，饒命。」此時七十個小行者，按住七個蜘蛛，那裡肯放。行者道：「且不要打他，只教還我師父、師弟來。」一个个攒着手脚，索着头，只叫：「饶命，饶命。」此时七十个小行者，按住七个蜘蛛，那里肯放。行者道：「且不要打他，只教还我师父、师弟来。」
逐句解 Line by line
One after another they drew in their legs and hunched their heads, crying only, "Spare us! Spare us!"
⚠ 攢 is cuán, to draw together into a bunch — a reading the automatic reader gets wrong, offering zǎn, to hoard. Both 著 are zhe, holding the posture. And the posture is exactly what a spider does when you touch it: legs pulled in under the body, head tucked down. The text has stopped describing women.
By now the seventy little Pilgrims had the seven spiders pinned and were in no mood to let go.
那裡肯放 is "where would they be willing to let go" — a rhetorical 那裡 meaning not on your life. Seventy holding down seven, which is ten to one and rather more than necessary.
"Don't kill them yet," said Pilgrim. "Just make them give me back my master and my brothers."
⚠ 還 is huán here, to give back — not hái, still or yet. The chapter has seven of this character and three of them, all within twenty lines, are this returning band. 只教 is "just have them", with 教 as jiào, the causative.
The seven beg, and what they beg with is a spider's body language. Legs drawn in, head down, and the only two words they can manage repeated. Whatever sympathy the back-room scene earned them, the text is now describing something you would step away from.
Pilgrim's instruction is the interesting part. Don't kill them — make them give my people back. He has seven hostages and he intends to trade. It is the first sensible negotiating position anybody has taken in this chapter, and it lasts about forty characters.
Note also what he does not do. He has them pinned, ten to one, and he does not ask about the antidote. Nobody in this chapter asks about the antidote until it is far too late to matter.