Chapter XIX: Oblivion

Brent Gaylong could see nothing, but he felt the flat rock on which his foot had pinioned the snake sinking beneath the pressure. As it yielded and settled in the oozy bottom it was necessary for him to press still harder with his foot, or at least to maintain the pressure. There was a tendency to relax this pressure somewhat as the rock sank, for Brent knew not how far it might go down in that unseen muck. Obviously, he could not hold the snake imprisoned except upon a firm foundation. Obviously, also, the harder he pressed the more the rock would go down.

This new and ominous turn of affairs below him was somehow communicated to the winding, clinging, undulating mass that held his leg like a spiral cable. There were pressure and relaxation of pressure in that sinuous body, as if the reptile were preparing for a new stage in the deadly tussle.

Then Brent heard a sound above him. I can well imagine his joy and his relief. It was a sound as of parting brush--Tom had returned! At this thought he took heart and his sense of relief expressed itself in renewed and vigorous pressure on the rock. It sank, sank, sank....

There he was, in utter darkness, with not even a glint of light from the world above, where human beings lived. Not the faintest glimmer insinuating itself through the rank overgrowth that crowded the mouth of the well. His foot held the neck of a deadly reptile which was coiled about his leg, while the tiny stage of this terrible encounter was sinking below him....

But there was the sound of parting brush above, and it was like music in Brent’s ears. In a kind of nervous relief he rubbed his dripping forehead with his left hand and encountered one of those loathsome little creeping slugs that love the damp and darkness. He knew by the feeling of it and brushed it away with a shudder.

In all the time he had been there he had not spoken aloud; he had an odd feeling that his voice might in some way enrage his horrible captive and give it fresh strength. But now he called, “Is that you, Tom?”

There was no answer, only another sound as of parting brush. With a shudder it occurred to him that perhaps the sound was caused by the freshening night breeze.

“Tom! That you?” he called. “Hurry up!”

There was no response. Far, far away, up in the world, he heard an owl. Its call did not seem ghostly; it seemed even cheerful, coming from the solemn woods. There was no other sound; only a bubbling, oozy sound below him as the stone settled in the oozy mud and network of rotten roots and twigs.

“_Tom!_” he shouted.

There was no answer. The human body and the human spirit can bear only so much. When despair is added to fatigue and alarm, then hope dies and one accepts the verdict of fate. Death is welcome; anything is welcome.

In a blind impulse of despair, Brent straightened his embarrassed leg, felt the coils tighten with the movement, and pushed with all his might and main. The rock moved, he lost his balance and went sprawling down into the foul débris. He felt his senses slipping from him. But in his ebbing consciousness he knew that the reptile was now free and that presently its deadly fangs would be buried in his flesh. Even as his senses left him he could feel that sinuous body relax and unwind around his leg. Well, whatever happened, he would not know it....