For the instant after the serpent appeared nobody spoke or moved. The waving motion of the reptile was fascinating to the last degree, as was also that beady stare from its glittering eyes. The stare was fixed upon poor Tom, and having retreated but a few feet, he now stood as though rooted to the spot. Slowly the form of the snake was lowered, until only the end of its tail kept it up on the tree branch. Then the head and neck began to swing back and forth, in a straight line with Tom's face.
The horrible fascination held the poor, boy as by a spell, and he could do nothing but look at those eyes, which seemed to bum themselves upon his very brain. Closer and closer, and still closer, they came to his face, until at last the reptile prepared to strike.
Crack! It was Sam's pistol that spoke up, at just the right instant, and those beady eyes were ruined forever, and the wounded head twisted in every direction, while the body of the serpent, dropping from the tree, lashed and dashed hither and thither in its agony. Then the spell was broken, and Tom let out such a yell of terror as had never before issued from his lips.
Crack! came a second shot from Sam's pistol. But the serpent was moving around too rapidly for a good aim to be taken, and only the tip of the tail was struck. Then, in a mad, blind fashion, the snake coiled itself upon Aleck's foot, and began, with lightning-like rapidity, to encircle the colored man's body.
"Help!" shrieked Aleck, trying to pull the snake off with his hands. "Help! or Ise a dead man, shuah!"
"Catch him by the neck, Aleck!" ejaculated Tom, and brought out his own pistol. Watching his chance, he pulled the trigger twice, sending both bullets straight through the reptile's body. Then Sam fired again, and the mangled head fell to the ground.
But dead or alive the body still encircled Aleck, and the contraction threatened to cave in the colored man's ribs.
"Pull him off somehow!" he gasped. "Pull him off!"
Crack! went Tom's pistol once more, and now the snake had evidently had enough of it, for it uncoiled slowly and fell to the ground in a heap, where it slowly shifted from one spot to another until life was extinct. But neither the boys nor the colored man waited to see if it was really dead. Instead, they took to their heels and kept on running until the locality was left a considerable distance behind.
"That was a close shave," said Tom, as he dropped on the ground and began to nurse his lame ankle once more. "Ugh! but that snake was enough to give one the nightmare!"