mine--molten amber wine,
hotter and more golden than the sunshine; the fire of it was in my
veins, the recklessness of intoxication was on me, life itself as
nothing compared to a sip from that chalice, my lips must taste or my
soul would die, and with trembling hand and strained face I began to
climb.

But the woodman pulled me back.

"Back, stranger!" he cried. "Those who drink there never live again."

"Blessed oblivion! If I had a thousand lives the price were still too
cheap," and once more I essayed to scramble up.

But the man was a big fellow, and with nostrils plugged, and eyes
averted from the deadly glamour, he seized me by the collar and threw
me back. Three times I tried, three times he hurled me down, far too
faint and absorbed to heed the personal violence. Then standing
between us, "Look," he said, "look and learn."

He had killed a small ape that morning, meaning later on to take its
fur for clothing, and this he now unslung from his shoulder, and
hitching the handle of his axe into the loose skin at the back of its
neck, cautiously advanced to the witch plant, and gently hoisted the
monkey over the blue palings. The moment its limp, dead feet touched
the golden pool a shudder passed through the plant, and a bird
somewhere far back in the forest cried out in horror. Quick as
thought, a spasm of life shot up the tendrils, and like tongues of blue
flame they closed round the victim, lapping his miserable body in their
embrace. At the same time the petals began to rise, showing as they
did so hard, leathery, unlovely outer rinds, and by the time the
woodman was back at my side the flower was closed.

Closer and closer wound the blue tendrils; tighter and tighter closed
the cruel petals with their iron grip, until at last we heard the ape's
bones crackling like dry firewood; then next his head burst, his brains
came oozing through the crevices, while blood and entrails followed
them through every cranny, and the horrible mess with the overflow of
the chalice curled down the stem in a hundred steaming rills, till at
last the petals locked with an ugly snap upon their ghastly meal, and I
turned away from the sight in dread and loathing.

That was plant Number One.

Plant Number Two was of milder disposition, and won a hearty laugh for
my friendly woodman. In fact, being of a childlike nature, his success
as a professor of botany quite pleased him, and not content with
answering my questions,