The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 370: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

iteelf, did it strive to drag the reptile down from the tree. The boa constrictor seemed to elongate like a tightened esble when a ship is pulling hard at its moorings: but in a few moments the won- drous elasticity of the serpent was displayed ; for, apparently without an effort, it shortened its length, as it were, and drew the tiger completely in towards the root of the tree. Then, the Barker, with bsir standing on end, and the flesh creeping coldly, heard the crashing of the bones of the agonising wild beast: for the coils of the snake were giving the last fata] evidence of their con- etricting pewer. Slowly advanced the snake's bead, farther and farther over the body of the tiger: tighter and tighter became the coils : more continuous, but hkewise more and more languid, grew the convulsions and the writhings of the perishing wild beast. At length the tiger lay motionless—bat not this time tu recover from ites exhaustion and gather strength for a new effort to shake off its enemy. The tiger was dead. Again there was an interval of silence; and the Burker wight have fancied that the snake was | speci dead likewise, were it not that its eyes continued to gleam with that horrible reptile light, and that its length between the brench sustaining its tail and the commencement of its coile around the tiger, dangled lasily to and fro, like a partially loosened cable agitated by the wind. But not long was this interval of silence: for soon did the bones again begin to crash; and now all along the supple length of the serpent there were the evidences of the strong mascular motion, the vibrations and the tensions, by which the constricting process was carried on against the last impediments, The tiger lay with ite mouth open, ite tongue lolling out and dabbled with blood. Its green eyes were fixed io a glassy stare; and the constricting power possible of the reptile gave a continuous oscillating to the form of the wild beast itself. Gradually the snake wound its coils completely about the tiger, which thus kept on elongating in the power- ful gripe of each iron fold. The boa ed de- liberately with the work that it was accomplish- ing : it had to break the bones in every part of the brute’s body ; and thus at length its neck encir. cling the hinder legs, drew them tight up against the belly of the wild beast. Ribs, lege, backbone all were thus successively crushed ; so that at the expiration of a time the tiger presented to the view only one long shapeless mass. Ever and anon the snake desisted for awhile, as if to rest —or as if to gloat over ite triumph and its in- tended meal. And all this while the Burker re- mained in the tree, a spectator of the hideous scene | Two mortal hours thus paseed from the moment when the snake first flang its coils about the form of the tiger, until the point which our description has just reached. Two mortal hoarse |—they seemed two centuries to the miserable man! No- thing coald be more horrible than the sensation produced npon him by the breaking, crashing, and crashing of those banes. He felt as if the snake were coiled around himeelf, and as if they were his own bones which were thus frightfully yielding to the infernal pressure. Indeed, the world has no language possessing terma strong enough to convey an idea of ail the wretch experienced during those two mortal hours. Nothing he had previ- ously known of the horrors of the jungle, could be compared to this crowning one. His compulsory to that monstrous reptile, measuring a8 least forty feet in length, was.in iteelf a stupen- dous horror: but when be heard the bones crash and ignorant of the habits of the snake, trembled lest it should seek another victim—he felt as if he were about to yell forth in the wild anguish of a maniac, Bat the reptile had other work todo. Gradu- ‘ally loosening ite coils from around the tiger, it began to cover the carcase with a slime which ite livid jaws poured forth,— its lambent tongue playing the while, and its eyes gleaming in a manner that added fresh details to the unspeak- able hideousness of the entire scene. At the same time a most sickly and revolting effluvium began to circle about the Burker, as he eat up in the tree. It grew more and more intense: the whole around him seemed poi He thought that the strongest life could not remain proof against that disgusting odour: again did a es of vertigo seize upon him; and again did he clutch the branches with all his power in order to save himeelf from falling. Aroused by that effort, more mechanical than voluntary at the time,—he again looked down to behold the doings of the snake. It was prepering to enjoy the fruits of its triumph—to benquet after its own fashion upon ite victin—to @ of its horrid meal. The Barker could soarcely believe the evidence of his own senses when he peresived that the snake was preparing to ewallow the lubricated and elongated carcase of the tiger. The reptile’s head was of a ‘smallness and its neck of a narrowness in comperison with the bulk of ite body at the thickest pert, that it seemed im- ible for even an object a quarter as great as motion | the dead wild beast to be swallowed in such a manner. How therefore was the Burker’s amasemeni—hbow breathless his horror—how fear- fal the interest which he experienced, when he perosived the jaws of the snake open to an extent which readily allowed them to suck in as it were the bead of the tiger. With its tail still retain- ing a firm hold of the branch of the tree, as if on this support depended the entire muscular power which the reptile possessed,—it proceeded slowly—and it even a fally—to sack in the remainder. This a process lasted for nearly half-an-hour: then slowly did the boa disengage its tail from the branch; and as much of ite length as had remained suspended to the tree, dropped heavily to the The snake now lay completely still : ite head was buried eomewhere amidst its ooils—so that the vibrating eyes were no longer looking up at the Burker. He could ive where, in the thickest part of its body, the mass of the swallowed tiger lay: for there was a tremendous balging-out of the rep- tile’s form, defining the.complete co ion of that degluted mass. For nearly four hours had the Burker now re- mained in the tree; and he began to recollect he had once heard or read of the torpid state in which reptiles remain for a while that the serpent was now powerless to hurt him. (CO G OOO SS} (CO