The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-04-12

/ inch.
AS his eye took in these facts, tn,
Infatuated fangs were all the Will
leaping at him incessantly, in fulfill
viciousness, forewarning him of hi
death. The man attempted to jerk bacl
his head, then stirred uneasily, and a
length became fascinated by the eyes
the glistening scales and the little
grinning jaws. Back on the slim
smooth neck he watched the hard looI
of rawhide rattle along its way, al
each thrust, like billiard-counter OF
a wire. 1t would leap back as far as
! it could, this loop, until the body be-
came too large for it. Then the snake
would quickly settle into its coils and
here would come the loop back up be-
hind the cruel, distended head again
| Backward, Observation-Disclosures, for
ward, as the snake darted or sank went
| the ring of raw leather. The man seem
ed for moments stupefed, bewildered,
amazed and frightened at his fate. The
destroyer, interested in but the one
thing, would rest a while and then
/ plunge at him anew, with nasty fling
/ of it's head and neck. He grinned at
the needless warning of the whirring
rattles.
At the end of five minutes, however.
he no longer grinned or thought of
| grinning. His hands were rapid be-
coming numb and senseless, his back
raw, his feet dead from the ankles
| down, his breath labored and difficult;
most exquisite of all was sharp pain
in the back of his neck, due to his hold
ing his head too long in an erect posi-
! ton, thus contracting the muscles there.
Yet the man dare not change. He was
afraid to lay his face in the earth
again. He was compelled to keep his
eyes upon every movement of his enc
my, to watch the rotating, kaleido-
scopic eyes, the milky fangs and the
vacillating tongue, licking so closely at
his face Once he did bury his face in
the sand-and the snake managed TO
touch his hair. The contact sent a
spasm of uncomfortable fright through
him, and Re Strengthened up abruptly,
facing the horrid thi" with drawn
features. Still, he argued to himself,
there could be no direct danger, as
long as that strip of rawhide held the
RATHER in its present place.
Then, aggravatingly, the ache began
in the back of his neck again. 1t seem
ed to be nervous stabbing, as if hot
wires, instead of nerves, were running
up his spinal cord into his brain. 1t
throbbed and required ecstatically, hot
ter, more terrible than before. His eyes
began to protrude slightly; the pent-up
blood in his head was having its effect.
His ears thrummed duly to some in
ternal sound; the sound was the monot-
onous pumping of his own heart.
At last, when he was forced to lower
his head for relief, the snake bit into
his hair. The uncanny effect brought
his forehead up with a jerk, and the
reptiles tongue almost licked his flesh.
Then the man shivered and lay still,
thinking the pain in his neck would
become, in time, as deadened as that in
his ankles and wrists. The only move
ment of which he was capable now was
a certain mastication, a rumination of
his jaws. a rotary movement in which
his hot tongue curled from side to side
and he could hear, in his drumming
ears, the gritting of the gristle of his
jawbone. 1t gave him a little relief,
this chewing of his tongue, but he was
soon compelled to cease even that; his
tongue became as dry as sand, and this
movement made it hotter and drier and
more swollen. All the time, almost
without a blink of his staring eyes,
he kept his gaze upon the glitter of
the orbs and coils before him, upon
the subtle, sinister and rapid convolu-
tions of the beast as it lifted and
settled itself At times it ceased its
useless attack; at times it flung itself
fitfully at him; at times it repeated
again and again, in frenzy, the vicious
hurting of its head.
When his sight became blurred, which
it soon did. the snake seemed to coil
undulantly over the whole plain, over
his entire range of vision. 1t glided
and slipped and glittered; it poised and
balanced and waved itself lightly; it
stabbed and prieked with its avid
tongue. At length his eyes became con
gested by the long cramping of his
iugular vein. so that they bulged slight
ly more, and grew the least bit blood
shot. His tongue was perfectly dry,
and with it he aimlessly licked his pale
lips. He felt himself succumbing to
the stupor of overwrought nerves. He
lurched heavily. He argued with him
self that he was dying anyway, and