The Circle of Death

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1, 6 July 1907, Page 28

The Circle of Death

IT was a night in mid-August, and Texas was sweltering. The cowboys, eight in all. were sitting around their camp-fire, made of dry

sticks and bleached driftwood, gathered from the banks of the Red River, some three hundred vards distant.

The sun-dried grass had been carefully burned away in a wide circle, and exactly in the center of the space of blackened stubble and earth the campfire had been built. That precaution was necessary in those days, some twenty years ago, for then the loathsome, deadly centipede and tarantula, and particularly the centipede, had not given way to the advance of civilisation. These dreaded things would not venture on newly burned ground, and where fire had passed the weary ranchman and cattleman could spread his blanket and sleep peacefully and without fear.

The eight cowboys on this mid-August night had finished their supper of dried beef, broiled over the coals, and cold corn cakes, and had lighted pipes for a smoke before turning in. They talked banteringly of the incidents of the day, and swore great wicked, naked oaths, as was their way. They did not know, of course, that death, foul and horrible, was in their midst.

Dan Bowman, the big. sandy-haired cowboy who could take a two-year-old steer by the horns and make it bawl quits, unbent one of his sinewy knees and straightned out his leg flat in front of him, letting the light from the fire flare up on the lower part of his shirt front, which before had been in shadow. Instantly, Bud Green, who sat directly across the fire from him, and who was his side-partner, started as if to spring to his feet, but cheeked himself. His face was blanched and strained, and his eyes were staring at the lower part of Dan's shirt front. Almost simultaneously with Bud's terrified start. Dan. impelled by that keen, animal-like instinct which is a part of the nature of all men whose lives are associated with danger, glanced down—and saw a large centipede disappearing in an opening of his shirt. He took breath with a catch, like a man strangling. and his hand moved convulsively. as if to clutch the venomous thing and crush it, but he caught himself in time and remained motionless. It had all happened in an eye’s wink, and the wretched cowboy had been aided in his warning to restrain himself by his partner admonishing him. hoarsely: ‘•For God's sake, Dan, don't move, don't breathe. Maybe it’ll come out agent” Then, to the others, who had not seen “Keep still, boys! A centipede’s crawled inside o’ Dan's shirt. Don’t lift a hand or do notnin’ that'll disturb it, an’ maybe it’ll come out agen without tetchin’ him.” How the centipede had got on the cowboy was a question hard to answer. It may have crawled up on his leg while they were burning the grass on the campsite, or it may have clung to his clothing while they were picking up wood for the fire. In either case it must have secreted itself, with devilish cunning, in in a seam or crease of his clothing, and kept quiet and hidden as long as he moved about: otherwise it would have been detected long before. Evidently it had started as soon as he sat down, and spying the gap where the shirt was unbuttoned, had crawled in for safety. Dan never moved a muscle, but all the colour left his face, and his lips became pallid, like a sick man's. The agony he endured could not be described. The things he thought could not be imagined. Every moment he expected to feel against his cringing skin the crawl of its feet, then the sting of its wicked bit*, the swift and fatal rush of the filthy venom through his veins, the numbing paralysis, the hardening of the flesh, and the oozing of the little milk-like drops of sweat from the pores around the bite, and then

He did not know which way the centipede was going. He only knew, from

pulse to pulse, that Iris life was being spared and his torture prolonged.

The others sat as motionless as if they were petrified, and as silent as if they lacked the power of speech. The injunction of the cowboy’s partner was being obeyed to the letter. Some of them dreaded to look at Dan. whom they already considered doomed, and kept their eyes bent on the fire. Others, with bated breath, watched him. expecting every second to see him clutch madly at some part of his-shirt and shriek in despair.

About three minutes had elapsed —it seemed hours to them—since the centipede had entered Dan’s shirt, and it had not been felt. The tension and fearful suspense were telling on him. His eyes had become bloodshot and the veins stood out on his temples and hands. His partner watched him closely, faithfully, across the fire, his soul wrung with desire to help him. But be was as powerless to help as if Dan already stood beyond death’s dividing line. With a six-shooter in his hand, he would have had a good chance of rescuing him from a band of Comanche or Apache Indians, but even to touch him now might mean death. He caught Dan’s eye for a fleeting moment and read its mesage. "That’s all 0.K.. Dau.” he said, in low tones, fearing that even the sound of his voiee might rouse the centipede. “If it happens that way I’ll see that no harm comes to her an the youngster. I’ll look out fer ’em, Dan.”

Another minute elapsed, then another, anr then Bud suddenly leaped to his feet in an attitude ready to spring, his eyes strained with the intensity of action and his hat clutched in his hand, ready to strike.

Dan knew at once the cause of his partner’s agitation, and dropped his eyes. He beheld the centipede emerging from the other side of his shirt. The shirt stood out in a loose fold from his body, and the centipede had obviously crawled entirely around him. clinging to the garment.

The hideous thing was slowly turning abruptly on the facing of the shirt, which was apparently a laborious feat for it, since its body must bend more than customary. Leg by leg it came out, and inch by inch Dan’s partner drew within striking distance.

The centipede was about half out when it missed its footing. Its loathsome body twisted once or twice, as of about, to topple backward against the bare bosom of its victim. Dan became nauseated. almost blind, and his partner's heart was thumping as though it were in his throat.

A few more squirms and the centipede steadied itself, and then dragged its lull length out of the shirt. On the instant Bud sprang across the fire, there was a sharp flick of his leg hat-brim, and the centipede was writhing in the Mack dust, and just at the feet of the man around whom it had drawn a circle of death. From there it was kicked into the fire, to perish, as it should, a thing accursed.

Saved. Dan sank backward, limply, and _• eold sweat laoke out on his brow. His partner raised him gently, and held a flask of brandy to his lips. Being a strong man, he soon revived, but there was no sleep for him that night. Through the long hours until dawn he sat and stirred up the fire and watched furtively, his flesh crawling at every touch of his clothing.—Bv James Ravenscroft, in “The Metropolitan.”