CHAPTER x.x.xV.

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 ma.s.s 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 pa.s.sed. 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 a.s.sisted 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.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

RIGHT OR WRONG.

Elsie held out both hands, and there was a welcome light in her eyes. It seemed to Frank that she was far prettier than when he had last seen her in Fardale.

"Frank, I am so glad to see you!"