where the danger lies, for they might tear your flesh."
Silvela stood for an instant close beside the trailing arms, his eyes glowing with a half insane light. His face was flushed with the passionate fire that surged through his veins. To his susceptible mind I know that it was the crowning adventure of his life. I could tell that his heart was pounding, from the throbbing arteries of his throat. His lips were moving, and I strained my ears to catch the sound.
"For Mercedes!" he murmured, and stepped between the hanging tendrils.
Another moment's pause, and he bent down to the fleshy plates in the heart of the plant and drank long and deeply of the golden juice. Dreamily he closed his eyes, and, leaning forward, I could faintly catch some of the broken accents that came from his lips.
"Ah, love, my only love!" he murmured, "See, beloved, the angel faces—celestial voices coming near—sweet, how sweet—the unearthly light of Elysian fields—ah, the heavenly perfume—the surging of the eternal sea!"
With folded arms, I stood and waited. Lost to all else save the delights of his entrancing vision, every faculty, every sense deluded into happy quiescence by the chimerical phantasm, he did not note the tremulous vibrations which ran through the whole mass of the horrible plant.
Slowly at first, and then more quickly, the long, sinewy palpi began to rise and twist in what seemed a fearful dance of death. Higher and higher rose the dreadful arms, until they hovered over the unconscious form of their victim.
Once I pressed a little too closely, and one of the awful, twisting tendrils came in contact with my hand, I sprang back and just in time for so deadly was the grasp of the noxious arms, that the skin was stripped from my flesh.
Slowly, but surely, the octopus like arms settled about Silvela's body. One of them dropped across his cheek. As it touched the bare flesh a tremor ran through his frame, and he suddenly opened his eyes.
It was only a moment until he was fully awake to the horror of his position. While he was reveling in dreams of paradise, the grim arms of the death plant had enclosed him in their viselike clasp, and I knew that no power upon earth could make them relax until they opened to throw forth the dry husk—the dead skin and bones—of their prey. Already they had so constricted his chest that he could breath only in short, panting gasps. His terror-stricken eyes sought my face.
"My God, Rodriguez!" he cried in a terrible voice.
The arms gripped him closer. He gasped out a word, "Help!"
"Silvela Castelar," I said, with quiet bitterness, "You are beyond all human aid. I could not help you if I would. Once within the grasp of those awful arms, I would be as helpless as you. Remember at every step of this fatal journey I warned you, but at each warning you grew more determined. Three times you have brought ruin upon me; the third time you left for me nothing in life, but I was resolved that you should not enjoy what I had lost. Silvela, tonight the debits and credits of your account with me stand balanced. Across the page of the book of life I write the words, 'Paid in full!'"
He heard me through. Then, as he realized that hope was gone, shriek after terrible shriek burst from his frenzied lips. In his terror and despair, he struggled in a madness of desperation; but every movement caused the embrace of the ghastly arms to tighten upon his body.
With sick heart, I turned from the awful scene and plunged forward on my homeward path. As I passed around the great rock from where we had first glimpsed the fatal tree, a last heart-breaking wail reached my ears.
"Mercedes! Mercedes!"
Like the last cry of lost soul hovering over the abyss of gehenna, it shrilled in vibrating terror through the air, echoing back from the ghoulish rocks, and then died away into the silence of the approaching night.
A faintness seized me, and I shivered at the touch of the chilling breeze which sprang up as the sun sank, blood red, below the horizon; and my heart was as cold as my shrinking flesh.
Sunshine or shadow—it is the same to me now. But in recompense for my shattered life, I shall carry with me always, the vision of Silvela's distorted form writhing in close embrace of the devil tree's snaky arms, in my ears there will ever ring the echo of his last despairing cry of, "Mercedes!"
HOOTCH
I HAD committed murder. In a terrible fit of rage I had killed my friend, Jim McCarthy. I was going to be hung at sunrise, There was no hope. I must die.
Slowly the great steel door swung open, and four guards entered my cell. One of them stepped a little in advance of the others.
"Come!" he said, and that was all.
I rose, tottering, from my bench. I must die! I must leave the sunlight of the earth behind me. I had committed murder.
I was led through the cold, bleak prison corridors and out into the lighted courtyard where a number of people were gathered—prison officials and a few newspaper men. The scaffold stood before me, and with tottering legs I was assisted to the top.
A black cap, a horrible thing spelling death, was fitted over my head and drawn tight about my neck. All was still about me. No one spoke.
I felt the noose placed about my neck. The cold sweat broke out over my body. I could scarcely stand. Death! Death! I was to know the feeling of that terrible rope in a few moments.
"Ready!" said a sharp voice.
I felt the earth slip from under me, and I shot into space. A feeling of suffocation, indescribably terrible, enveloped me, and a million sparks of fire seemed dancing before my eyes, though I could not see, I tried to scream, but could make no sound. Then something seemed to burst; my lungs were free; I gave a terrible cry.
A voice from above came sharply down to me:
"What the devil's the matter with you, Bill?"
The ship gave a lurch and brought me wide awake. In the dim light of the cabin I saw Jim McCarthy's face peering at me from the bunk above.
"Jim," I said, wiping my sweat soaked face with the sheet. "If you fill me up on any more of your homemade hootch I will kill you!"
