THE SERPENT VINE.
With his hands bound behind his back, unable to help himself, Frank
reeled forward into the embrace of the deadly vine, each branch of which
was twisting, curling, squirming like the arms of an octopus.
He nearly plunged forward upon his face, but managed to recover and keep
on his feet.
He felt the vine whip about his legs and fasten there tenaciously, felt
it twist and twine and crawl like a mass of serpents, and he knew he was
in the grasp of the frightful plant which till that hour he had ever
believed a creation of some romancer's feverish fancy.
Frank did not cry out. A great horror seemed to come upon him and benumb
his body and his senses.
He could feel the horrid vines climbing and coiling about him, and he
was helpless to struggle and tear them away. He knew they were mounting
to his neck, where they would curl about his throat and choke the breath
of life from his body.
It was a fearful fate--a terrible death. And there seemed no possible
way of escaping.
Higher and higher climbed the vine, swaying and squirming, the blood-red
flowers opening and closing like lips of a vampire that thirsted for his
blood.
A look of horror was frozen on Frank's face. His eyes bulged from his
head, and his lips were drawn back from his teeth. He did not cry out,
he did not seem to breathe, but he appeared to be turned to stone in the
grasp of the deadly plant.
It was a dreadful sight, and the two sailors, rough and wicked men
though they were, were overcome by the spectacle. Shuddering and
gasping, they turned away.
For the first time, Gage seemed to fully realize what he had done. He
covered his eyes with his hand and staggered backward, uttering a low,
groaning sound.
Merriwell's staring eyes seemed fastened straight upon him with that
fearful stare, and the thought flashed through the mind of the wretched
boy that he should never forget those eyes.
"They will haunt me as long as I live!" he panted. "Why did I do it? Why
did I do it?"
Already he was seized by the pangs of remorse.
Once more he looked at Frank, and once more those staring eyes turned
his blood to ice water.
Then, uttering shriek after shriek, Gage turned and fled through the
swamp, plunging through marshy places and jungles, falling, scrambling
up, leaping, staggering, gasping for breath, feeling those staring eyes
at his back, feeling that they would pursue him to his doom.
Scarcely less agitated and overcome, Bowsprit and the negro followed,
and Frank Merriwell was abandoned to his fate.
Frank longed for the use of his hands to tear away those fiendish vines.
It was a horrible thing to stand and let them creep up, up, up, till
they encircled his throat and strangled him to death.
Through his mind flashed a picture of himself as he would stand there
with the vines drawing tighter and tighter about his throat and his face
growing blacker and blacker, his tongue hanging out, his eyes starting
from their sockets.
He came near shrieking for help, but the thought that the cry must reach
the ears of Leslie Gage kept it back, enabled him to choke it down.
He had declared that Gage should not hear him beg for mercy or aid. Not
even the serpent vine and all its horrors could make him forget that
vow.
The little red flowers were getting nearer and nearer to his face, and
they were fluttering with eagerness. He felt a sucking, drawing,
stinging sensation on one of his wrists, and he believed one of those
fiendish vampire mouths had fastened there.
He swayed his body, he tried to move his feet, but he seemed rooted to
the ground. He did not have the strength to drag himself from that fatal
spot and from the grasp of the vine.
It seemed that hours passed. His senses were in a maze, and the whole
world was reeling and romping around him. The trees became a band of
giant demons, winking, blinking, grinning at him, flourishing their arms
in the air, and dancing gleefully on every side to the sound of wild
music that came from far away in the sky.
Then a smaller demon darted out from amid the trees, rushed at him,
clutched him, slashed, slashed, slashed on every side of him, dragged at
his collar, and panted in his ear:
"White boy fight--try to git away! His hands are free."
Was it a dream--was it an hallucination? No! his hands were free! He
tore at the clinging vines, he fought with all his remaining strength,
he struggled to get away from those clinging things.
All the while that other figure was slashing and cutting with something
bright, while the vine writhed and hissed like serpents in agony.
How it was accomplished Frank could never tell, but he felt himself
dragged free of the serpent vine, dragged beyond its deadly touch, and
he knew it was no dream that he was free!
A black mist hung before his eyes, but he looked through it and faintly
murmured:
"Socato, you have saved me!"
"Yes, white boy," replied the voice of the Seminole, "I found you just
in time. A few moments more and you be a dead one."
"That is true, Socato--that is true! I owe you my very life! I can never
pay you for what you have done!"
In truth the Indian had appeared barely in time to rescue Frank from the
vine, and it had been a desperate and exhausting battle. In another
minute the vine would have accomplished its work.
"I hear white boy cry out, and I see him run from this way," explained
the Seminole. "He look scared very much. Sailor men follow, and then I
come to see what scare them so. I find you."
"It was Providence, Socato. You knew how to fight the vine--how to cut
it with your knife, and so you saved me."
"We must git 'way from here soon as can," declared the Indian. "Bad
white men may not come back, and they may come back. They may want to
see what has happen to white boy."
Frank knew this was true, but for some time he was not able to get upon
his feet and walk. At length the Indian assisted him, and, leaning on
Socato's shoulder, he made his way along.
Avoiding the place where the sailors were camped, the Seminole proceeded
directly to the spot where his canoe was hidden. Frank got in, and
Socato took the paddle, sending the light craft skimming over the water.
Straight to the strange hut where Frank and his companions had stopped
the previous night they made their way.
The sun was shining into the heart of the great Dismal Swamp, and Elsie
Bellwood was at the door to greet Frank Merriwell.