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

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how But by a great effort he KEEP
himself awake; he concentrated hi
gaze and gritted his teeth
/ It seemed to him that all he could
see was sn~l.e's eyes, fascinating orbs
filling the whole horizon in pairs. They
+! giittered green against a background 0.
red; that was his horizon, that red. Ties
were emeralds with red fire in their
depths; they were diamonds shining
| blue. They whirled around and around
first one way-from right to left-then
the other. He had seen a red-and-
green lamp in a cigar store once which
might have looked something like that.
| The thick, humid air about him now
seemed universally to hiss; the I'M
bounded plain spreading out from where
he lay to the four solemn skies re-
sounded with the dry whirr of myriad
of rattles. A bit of foam fecked his
lips.
He tried to grin, but all of Sudden
became afraid that the snake would
thrust its head into his mouth He
estimated now that he must have been
there two hours, and still the snake
had not struck him. Yet everywhere
leaped and coiled and leaped this beast
before him; it was the biggest thing
in the world, the only thing that he
could see. And back of the singing
tongue and restless eyes he kept watch
of certain dry, hard rawhide ring,
and counted mechanically to himself as
it shuttled back and forth along slim,
bony neck-one. two-three, four-fif-
teen, sixteen = seventy five, seventy
six
With a splash he was aroused from
his hypnosis. A drop of water had fall
len. upon his neck!
Was it water-really water7 or on
ly an added muscular twinge in his
neck, he asked himself Surely it must
be water sweet, refreshing rain and not
an overstrained tendon. Water was
what he needed; it was the most pre-
cious thing in the world; it would cool
his head, his hot, bursting head it
would give him something to think
about besides this grinning, devilish
thing. Water!
1t quite hurt him with its GOODNESS,
and he found himself wondering where |
it had come from; then he remembered |
the thunderstorm. He was about to |
dismiss this speculation from his mind
and prepare to enjoy the cool down |
pour, when a sudden fierce thought tore
its way into his numbed brain and left |
him stiffened in a paroxysm of horror.
Geronimo had counted on the thun-
derstorml Why? He hesitated be
fore he plunged into the whirl of new
ideas. Could it be that? Great
God, yes; that was what the Apaches
had all along intended!
All laxness dispelled now, his mind
fairly fled along train of miserable
thoughts. The rattlesnaKe was leash
ed so that it could not strike him in
the present condition of the rawhide.
In the present condition! The rain,
however, would wet the leash. It
would stretch! The fendish scheme
had flowed into his mind all at once.
1t was to be a slow torture, coming
gradually to death with each loosening
Of that rawhide thong. With an in
rush of mental pain he cringed be-
meath the domination of this thought
He tried. to wrench his dead hands
from their fastenings-in vain. He
twisted his knees convulsively; he
shook his head grotesquely. A wild
fear began to seize him, to choke him.
Gould he stand it to see the thing
closer and closer to him with
each spring. AT last to fix its fangs
in his cheek? That was what Gero-
nimo had planned.
He looked at the snake and saw it
swaying from side to side, as if pleas
ed with the realization that its time
FOR murder had come. At the same
lime he felt few more drops of rain
upon his head. His purplish face took
On slight tinge of paIeness, and the
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES