10 Gorilla Adventure by Willard Price Read Free Book Online Page A

happening at one of the python holes. A white nose was emerging. It couldn’t be the nose of a python, because the African python has a yellow and black head and a black or dark-brown body spotted with light-brown designs.
    But this thing was white. It looked more like the nose of a polar bear. Of course that was absurd. What could it be?
    Now the whole head was up and out. Roger could see plainly by the shape of the head that it was a python - but snow-white with blue eyes. A red tongue darted in and out The tongue, instead of being a stinger as many people supposed, was a sort of miniature radar outfit. Every snake was so equipped, whether poisonous or non-poisonous. Roger knew this very well, but still could not help being a bit nervous when he saw a snake’s darting tongue.
    Another foot or two of the gleaming white snake emerged.
    It was time to act. Roger put the whistle to his mouth. But no, he must not blow it yet, the snake would feel the sound and escape. Roger must first get the lasso over the head. Then he would blow for all he was worth.
    It was necessary to step out of the bushes to get room to swing his rope. The snake, startled by his sudden appearance, raised its head.
    Roger swung the lasso and let fly. The noose dropped over the head and neck and was drawn tight. The snake immediately whipped out of the hole and twisted itself into knots in an effort to get rid of the noose.
    Now was the time to blow that whistle. But as Roger was bringing it to his mouth something new and exciting happened. The gorilla, returning from the water’s edge, is the uncertain light of dusk managed to step on a coil of the writhing snake.
    Immediately the angry serpent threw its tail around the gorilla’s legs and its head darted upward in a spiral that wrapped the gorilla’s arms tightly to its sides and brought snake and ape face to face. The python’s jaws closed on the gorilla’s shoulder.
    Roger acted swiftly. He leaped forward and whipped the rope round and round the two struggling forms. He was about to tie the end of the line to a tree. But he saw that this was not necessary. The gorilla’s feet were locked together. It could not take a single step.
    The mighty arms might easily have broken the snake’s backbone if they had been free. But they too were locked.
    The snake was constricting now. Every time the ape exhaled the coils tightened. No ordinary animal could stand this. The breath would be squeezed out of it and the heart would stop.
    Roger, fearing that the gorilla would cave in and die, blew a lusty blast on his whistle.
    Immediately there was a commotion at the cabin. The men burst out and came running, Hal in the lead.
    If Hal expected to see his brother in the coils of the python, he was much relieved to find Roger sitting calmly on a rock looking out over the quiet lake. Near him, as still as a monument, stood a hairy monster wrapped in python and rope.
    ‘You’d better untwist them,’ Roger said, ‘before the ape gets all the life pinched out of it.’
    Hal examined the monument. ‘I don’t think you need worry. Any ordinary animal would be dead by this time. But that rib cage is too stout to be crushed by any python.’
    ‘Then you’re not going to pull them apart?’
    ‘No. You’ve made a very neat package of them. I’d say you couldn’t have done it better if you had had them gift-wrapped. If we separate them, then we’ll have trouble with both of them. We’U take them just as they are. Mali, go get a net.’
    When the net came it was wrapped quickly around both figures then tied fast.
    ‘Lay hold,’ Hal said, but the men stood back. Hal guessed the reason. The very rare white python is especially sacred. There is a tradition that the goddess Hali returns as a white snake every thousand years.
    ‘She will bring us disaster if we don’t treat her kindly,’ Toto said.
    ‘We’ll treat her very kindly,’ Hal assured him. ‘Any man who harms her will be punished. Come, take