TO BE CONTINUED.
CAUGHT IN THE COILS.
The following adventure which befell Speke, the great explorer, forms one of the most thrilling episodes in a life full of perils and escapes. Captain Speke himself tells the tale.
It appears that he, with his comrade Grant, left the camp together one day to hunt game for their supper. Their first victim was a fine young buffalo cow.
Soon after, they had a prospect of still better fortune. An enormous elephant with particularly fine tusks was observed within range. Speke quickly brought his rifle up to his shoulder, took a careful aim, and fired.
A moment after, as he was watching for the effect of his shot, he heard a startled exclamation from the attendant negroes, and looked round.
To his horror, he saw a huge boa constrictor in the very act of darting down upon him from a branch overhead.
In less than a second—indeed, before he had time to stir a muscle to spring aside—the beast had shot out of the heavy foliage and caught him in a coil. Speke put out all his strength to get clear, and at the same instant, glancing round for help, saw Grant standing a few paces away, with rifle leveled.
“In a moment,” he continues, “I comprehended all. The huge serpent had struck the young buffalo cow, between which and him I had unluckily placed myself at the moment of firing upon the elephant. A most singular good fortune attended me, however, for, instead of being crushed into a mangled mass with the unfortunate cow, my left forearm had only been caught in between the buffalo’s body and a single fold of the constrictor. The limb lay just in front of the shoulder, at the root of the neck, and thus had a short bed of flesh, into which it was jammed, as it were, by the immense pressure of the serpent’s body, that was like iron in hardness.
“As I saw Grant about to shoot, a terror took possession of me; for if he refrained, I might possibly escape, after the boa released its folds from the dead cow; but should he fire and strike the reptile, it would, in its convulsions, crush or drag me to pieces.