Helpless as a child he awaited his fate.
Luckily three workers from headquarters happened to pass on their
way to their homes, which lay not far above the "Creek of Hell,"
and when they heard sobbing from the bank they called out.
The hypnotised _seringueiro_ managed to state that he had three
times been forced, by some strange power, to the spot where he now
was, unable to get away, and that he was deadly frightened. The
rubber-workers, with rifles cocked, approached in their canoe, fully
prepared to meet a jaguar, but when only a few yards from their comrade
they saw directly under the root where the man was sitting the head
of a monstrous boa-constrictor, its eyes fastened on its prey. Though
it was only a few feet from him, he had been unable to see it.
One of the men took good aim and fired, crushing the head of the snake,
and breaking the spell, but the intended victim was completely played
out and had to lie down in the bottom of the canoe, shivering as if
with ague.
The others took pains to measure the length of the snake before
leaving. It was 79 palmas or 52 feet 8 inches. In circumference it
measured 11 palmas, corresponding to a diameter of 28 inches. Its
mouth, they said, was two palmas or sixteen inches, but how they mean
this to be understood I do not know.
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