Furthermore, the place in which they stood mirrored dread into her soul, for only the evening before she had stood at the edge of that hole and gazed down while the Arabs held torches aloft and looked grimly at each other. So, but chiefly because of Hammer's actions and words, she smiled once and fainted.
The American felt frightened for a moment, then relief came to him. The burden had been put on his shoulders, and, allowing the girl to slip to the ground, he turned to find Krausz looking at them and frowning, blackness brooding in his eyes and an evil twist to his heavy jaw.
"She hass fainted? That iss good."
"Yes, she's fainted: but you'll notice that she kept her word first." Hammer's anger turned cold within him, for as he wondered what frightful thing lay in that hole he remembered the story of the pit of snakes—and he dreaded snakes as he dreaded no other thing on earth.
"She's kept her word, Krausz, so I guess it's up to you to keep yours. You lend me a couple of these askaris to carry Miss Helmuth and we'll be going."
"Wait."
The scientist seemed oddly apprehensive, seemed as if he were trying to say something which could not find utterance. He looked at Hammer, then at the askaris, then at the jungle above and around, and finally beckoned.
"Come—look at thiss thing."
Hammer did not want to look, yet it seemed as though some force drew him to follow the other to the edge of that black hole. Now he knew why the horror had come upon him, the snake-fear which lies at the bottom of many men's souls and which is not to be explained or reasoned away.
"Mein Gott—look at them!"