"Look!" he cried, pointing; "there is the serpent vine!"
On the ground before them, lay a mass of greenish vines, blossoming over with a dark red flower. Harmless enough they looked, but, as Gage drew a little nearer, they suddenly seemed to come to life, and they began reaching toward his feet, twisting, squirming, undulating like a mass of serpents.
"There!" shouted Leslie--"there is the vine that feeds on flesh and blood! See--see how it reached for my feet! It longs to grasp me, to draw me into its folds, to twine about my body, my neck, to strangle me!"
The sailors shuddered and drew back, while Frank Merriwell's face was very pale.
"It did fasten upon me," Gage continued. "If I had not been ready and quick with my knife, it would have drawn me into its deadly embrace. I managed to cut myself free and escape."
Then he turned to Frank, and the dancing light in his eyes was not a light of sanity.
"Merriwell," he said, "the serpent vine will end your life, and you'll never bother me any more!"
He leaped forward and clutched the helpless captive, screaming:
And he flung Frank headlong into the clutch of the writhing 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.