AT last my twenty-fifth birthday arrived, and I went into the woods to an old hollow tree in which there was a hole large enough for me to enter, and having ascertained, by careful inspection, that I was unobserved, I entered. Climbing up some twenty or thirty feet, I thrust my hand into the hollow of a limb which extended at right angle from the trunk, to get the package I had carefully placed there sometime before.
I felt my hand firmly grasped and a thick astonishment fell upon me, as I sought to ascertain the cause of the pain which I now felt tingling up my arm. I tugged and pulled and gradually began to withdraw my arm, bringing with it whatever it was that held it.
As I continued my exertions I soon saw two gleaming eyes.
This so frightened me that, for once in my long and eventful life, I lost my head, so to speak, and likewise my foothold, and should have fallen had I not been in the death-grip of some fearful monster.
I renewed my wiggling and twisting and jerking, by dint of which I continued slowly descending until I was opposite the opening through which I had entered, and out of this I struggled, drawing my enemy after me.
By getting a good purchase against the tree, I started the great serpent, as I now saw the thing to be, through the aperture.
He now ceased his reluctance to follow me, evidently being now determined to help matters along by coming out himself, and within an incredibly short space of time there was so much of him coiled upon the ground and around the tree that it was impossible for me even to estimate his enormous length.
But, behold my horror! For now he had coiled himself firmly, and while holding me some twenty or thirty feet from the ground was proceeding to draw me into his cavernous throat, in spite of my frenzied efforts to combat him.
My horror did not reach its climax until I found my head and shoulders surely entering the terrible maw.
It makes me all goose-fleshed to think of it—it was a terrible experience. Finally he had swallowed me, and I fell with a slippery thud to the point where his body was coiled upon the ground.