y would curl about his throat and choke the breath
of life from his body.

It was a fearful fate--a terrible death. And there seemed no possible
way of escaping.

Higher and higher climbed the vine, swaying and squirming, the blood-red
flowers opening and closing like lips of a vampire that thirsted for his
blood.

A look of horror was frozen on Frank's face. His eyes bulged from his
head, and his lips were drawn back from his teeth. He did not cry out,
he did not seem to breathe, but he appeared to be turned to stone in the
grasp of the deadly plant.

It was a dreadful sight, and the two sailors, rough and wicked men
though they were, were overcome by the spectacle. Shuddering and
gasping, they turned away.

For the first time, Gage seemed to fully realize what he had done. He
covered his eyes with his hand and staggered backward, uttering a low,
groaning sound.

Merriwell's staring eyes seemed fastened straight upon him with that
fearful stare, and the thought flashed through the mind of the wretched
boy that he should never forget those eyes.

"They will haunt me as long as I live!" he panted. "Why did I do it? Why
did I do it?"

Already he was seized by the pangs of remorse.

Once more he looked at Frank, and once more those staring eyes turned
his blood to ice water.

Then, uttering shriek after shriek, Gage turned and fled through the
swamp, plunging through marshy places and jungles, falling, scrambling
up, leaping, staggering, gasping for breath, feeling those staring eyes
at his back, feeling that they would pursue him to his doom.

Scarcely less agitated and overcome, Bowsprit and the negro followed,
and Frank Merriwell was abandoned to his fate.

Frank longed for the use of his hands to tear away those fiendish vines.
It was a horrible thing to stand and let them creep up, up, up, till
they encircled his throat and strangled him to death.

Through his mind flashed a picture of himself as he would stand there
with the vines drawing tighter and tighter about his throat and his face
growing blacker and blacker, his tongue hanging out, his eyes starting
from their sockets.

He came near shrieking for help, but the thought that the cry must reach
the ears of Leslie Gage kept it back, enabled him to choke it down.

He had declared that Gage should not hear him beg for mercy or aid. Not
even the serpent vine and all its horrors could make him forget that
vow.

The little red flowers were gettin