Page:Edward Ellis--Seth Jones.djvu/93

90 it, and he scarcely breathed for a few seconds. But the face was removed, and the hollow being dark within—the small rent being upon the opposite side of the hunter—the savage felt reassured and resumed the conversation.

But Haldidge was doomed to have a trial of his nerves, of which he little dreamed. When he entered the log, it was head foremost, so that his feet were toward the opening, and his face was in the dim light beyond. He judged the rotten cavity extended several feet farther back; but, as there was no necessity for entering farther, he did not attempt to explore it. It was while he lay thus, his whole soul bent to the one act of listening, that he was startled by the deadly warning of a rattlesnake! He comprehended the truth in an instant. There was one of these reptiles in the log beyond him!

It is difficult to imagine a more fearful situation than the hunter's at this moment. He was literally environed by death; for it was at his head, his feet, and above him, and there was no escape below. He had just learned that his death was one of the objects of the Indians, so that to back out into their clutches would be nothing less than committing suicide. To remain where he was, would be to disregard the second and last warning of the coiled rattlesnake. What was to be done? Manifestly nothing but to die like a man. Haldidge decided to risk the bite of the rattlesnake!

Despite himself, the hunter felt that the reptile was exerting its horrible fascination over him. Its small eyes, gleaming like tiny, yet fiery stars, seemed to emit a magnetic ray—thin, pointed and palpable, that pierced right into his brain. There was a malignant subtlety—an irresistible magnetism. Now the small, glittering point of light seemed to recede, then to approach and expand, and then to wave and undulate all around him. Sometimes that bright, lightning-like ray would shiver and tremble, and then straighten out with metal-like rigidity, and insinuate itself into his very being like the invisible point of a spear.

There was a desire on the part of Haldidge to shake off this influence, which wrapped him like a mantle. There was the desire, we say and yet there was a languid listlessness—a repugnance to making the effort. The feeling was something similar to that produced by a powerful opiate, when we are first