1
00:00:00,920 --> 00:00:07,919
The Man Eating Tree by phil Robinson. Preliminary note before committing this paper to

2
00:00:07,960 --> 00:00:12,039
the ridicule of the great mediocre,
For many I fear will be inclined to

3
00:00:12,080 --> 00:00:16,160
regard this story as incredible, I
would venture on the expression of an opinion

4
00:00:16,239 --> 00:00:21,120
regarding credulity which I do not remember
to have met before. It is this,

5
00:00:21,640 --> 00:00:26,839
placing supreme wisdom and supreme unwisdom at
the two extremes, and myself in

6
00:00:26,879 --> 00:00:31,000
the exact mean between them, I
am surprised to find that whether I travel

7
00:00:31,079 --> 00:00:35,439
towards the one extreme or the other, the credulity of those I meet increases.

8
00:00:35,880 --> 00:00:39,799
To put it as a paradox,
whether a man be foolish or wiser

9
00:00:39,799 --> 00:00:43,799
than I am, he is more
credulous. I make this remark to point

10
00:00:43,799 --> 00:00:48,240
out to those of the great mediocre
whose notice it may have escaped, that

11
00:00:48,359 --> 00:00:53,399
credulity is not of itself shameful or
contemptible, and that it depends upon the

12
00:00:53,479 --> 00:00:58,039
manner rather than the matter of their
belief, whether they gravitate towards the sage

13
00:00:58,280 --> 00:01:03,039
or the reverse way. According therefore, to the incredibility found in the following,

14
00:01:03,320 --> 00:01:08,319
the reader may measure as pleases him
his wisdom or his unwisdom z Oriel

15
00:01:10,040 --> 00:01:15,959
end of preliminary note. Peregrine Oriel, my maternal uncle was a great traveler,

16
00:01:17,159 --> 00:01:21,200
as his prophetical sponsors at the font
seemed to have guessed he would be.

17
00:01:21,719 --> 00:01:25,200
Indeed, he had rummaged in the
garrets and cellars of the earth was

18
00:01:25,319 --> 00:01:30,200
something more than ordinary diligence. But
in the narrative of his travels he did

19
00:01:30,239 --> 00:01:36,120
not, unfortunately preserve the judicious caution
of Xenophon between the things seen and the

20
00:01:36,120 --> 00:01:41,439
thing heard. And thus it came
about that the town counselors of Brunsbutel,

21
00:01:41,719 --> 00:01:47,040
to whom he had shown a duck
billed platypus caught alive by him in Australia,

22
00:01:47,200 --> 00:01:51,959
and who had him posted for an
importer of artificial vermin, were not

23
00:01:52,120 --> 00:01:56,920
alone in their skepticism of some of
the old Man's tales. Thus, for

24
00:01:56,959 --> 00:02:00,480
instance, who could hear and believe
the tale of the man sucking tree,

25
00:02:00,599 --> 00:02:06,000
from which he had barely escaped with
his life. He called it himself more

26
00:02:06,079 --> 00:02:10,960
terrible than the upas this awful plant
that rears its splendid death shade in the

27
00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:19,680
central solitude of a Nubian fern forest. Sickens by its unwholesome humors all vegetation

28
00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:24,240
from its immediate vicinity, and feeds
upon the wild beasts that, in the

29
00:02:24,360 --> 00:02:29,960
terror of the chase or the heat
of noon, seek the thick shelter of

30
00:02:30,039 --> 00:02:35,400
its boughs, Upon the birds that
flitting across the open space come within the

31
00:02:35,520 --> 00:02:39,719
charmed circle of its power, or
innocently refresh themselves from the cups of its

32
00:02:39,759 --> 00:02:46,080
great waxen flowers, Upon even man
himself, when an infrequent prey, the

33
00:02:46,159 --> 00:02:52,800
savage seeks its asylum in the storm, or turns from the harsh foot wounding

34
00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:59,120
sword grass of the glade to pluck
the wondrous fruit that hang plum down among

35
00:02:59,240 --> 00:03:05,879
the wondrous foliage, and such fruit
glorious golden ovals, great honey drops,

36
00:03:06,280 --> 00:03:13,560
swelling by their own weight into pear
shaped translucencies. The foliage glistens with a

37
00:03:13,680 --> 00:03:19,759
strange dew that all day long drips
on to the ground below, nurturing a

38
00:03:19,919 --> 00:03:24,520
rank growth of grasses, which shoot
up in places so high that their spikes

39
00:03:24,560 --> 00:03:30,719
of fierce, blood fed green show
far up among the deep tinted foliage of

40
00:03:30,800 --> 00:03:38,599
the terrible tree, and like a
jealous bodyguard keep concealed the fearful secret of

41
00:03:38,639 --> 00:03:44,599
the charnel house within, and draw
round the black roots of the murderous plant

42
00:03:44,840 --> 00:03:50,360
a decent screen of living green.
Such was his description of the plant.

43
00:03:50,759 --> 00:03:54,080
And the other day, looking up
in a botanical dictionary, I find that

44
00:03:54,120 --> 00:04:00,800
there is really known to naturalists a
family of carnivorous plants. But I see

45
00:04:00,879 --> 00:04:04,240
that they are most of them very
small, and prey upon little insects.

46
00:04:04,280 --> 00:04:10,159
Only my maternal uncle, however,
knew nothing of this, for he died

47
00:04:10,199 --> 00:04:14,879
before the days of the discovery of
the sun dew and pitcher plants, And,

48
00:04:14,960 --> 00:04:19,480
grounding his knowledge of the man sucking
tree simply on his own terrible experience

49
00:04:19,680 --> 00:04:26,360
of it, explained its existence by
theories of his own, denying the fixity

50
00:04:26,439 --> 00:04:30,279
of all the laws of nature,
except one that the stronger shall endeavor to

51
00:04:30,439 --> 00:04:35,839
consume the weaker, and holding even
this fixity to be itself only a means

52
00:04:35,879 --> 00:04:43,279
to a greater general changefulness, he
argued that, since any partial distribution of

53
00:04:43,319 --> 00:04:48,319
the faculty of self defense would presume
an unworthy partiality in the Creator, and

54
00:04:48,439 --> 00:04:55,439
since the central instincts of beast and
vegetable and manifest the analogous, the world

55
00:04:55,519 --> 00:05:00,079
must be as precipient as sentient.
Throughout carrying on his theory, for it

56
00:05:00,240 --> 00:05:04,879
was something more than hypothesis. With
him a stage or two further, he

57
00:05:05,040 --> 00:05:11,120
arrived at the belief that, given
the necessity of any imminent danger or urgent

58
00:05:11,199 --> 00:05:16,959
self interest, every animal or vegetable
could eventually revolutionize its nature. The wolf

59
00:05:17,160 --> 00:05:23,480
feeding on grass or nesting in trees, and the violet arming herself with thorns

60
00:05:23,680 --> 00:05:29,040
or entrapping insects. How he would
ask, can we claim for man the

61
00:05:29,120 --> 00:05:34,399
consequence of perceptions to sensations, and
yet deny to beasts that here see,

62
00:05:34,600 --> 00:05:42,160
feel, smell, and taste a
precipient principle coexistent with their senses. And

63
00:05:42,240 --> 00:05:46,519
if in the whole range of the
animate world there is this gift of self

64
00:05:46,519 --> 00:05:53,639
defense against extirpation and offense against weakness, why is the inanimate world holding as

65
00:05:53,720 --> 00:05:59,120
fiercely struggle for existence as the other, to be left defenseless and unarmed?

66
00:05:59,439 --> 00:06:04,160
And I did nigh that it is. The Brazilian epiphyte strangles the tree and

67
00:06:04,279 --> 00:06:11,319
sucks out its juices. The tree
again, to starve off its vampire parasite,

68
00:06:11,399 --> 00:06:16,120
withdraws its juices into its roots and
piercing the ground in some new place,

69
00:06:16,439 --> 00:06:21,800
turns the current of its sap into
other growths. The epiphyte then drops

70
00:06:21,839 --> 00:06:28,240
off the dead boughs on to the
fresh green sprouts springing from the ground beneath

71
00:06:28,279 --> 00:06:31,959
it, And so the fight goes
on again. Look at the Indian peepool

72
00:06:32,040 --> 00:06:38,399
tree in what does the fierce yearning
of its roots towards the distant well differ

73
00:06:38,480 --> 00:06:44,079
from the sad struggling of the camel
to the oasis, or of Sennachiab's army

74
00:06:44,360 --> 00:06:49,079
to the saving nile? Is the
sensitive plant unconscious? I have walked for

75
00:06:49,279 --> 00:06:55,240
miles through plains of it, and
watched till the watching almost made me afraid

76
00:06:55,399 --> 00:07:00,879
lest the plants should pluck up courage
and turn upon me, the green carpet

77
00:07:00,040 --> 00:07:05,959
paling into silver gray before my feet
and fainting away all round me as I

78
00:07:06,160 --> 00:07:13,040
walked. So strangely did I feel
the influence of this universal aversion that I

79
00:07:13,079 --> 00:07:16,480
would have argued with the plant.
But what was the use If only I

80
00:07:16,560 --> 00:07:21,600
stretched out my hands, the mere
shadow of the limb terrified the vegetable to

81
00:07:21,720 --> 00:07:28,079
sickness. Shrubs crumbled up at every
commencement of my speech, and at my

82
00:07:28,240 --> 00:07:33,800
period's great sturdy looking bushes, to
whose robustness I had foolishly appealed, sank

83
00:07:33,920 --> 00:07:40,000
in pallid supplication. Not a leaf
would keep me company. A breath went

84
00:07:40,160 --> 00:07:45,920
forth from me that sickened life.
My mere presence paralyzed life. And I

85
00:07:46,040 --> 00:07:49,360
was glad at last to come out
among a less timid vegetation, and to

86
00:07:49,399 --> 00:07:56,439
feel the resentful spear grass retaliating on
the heedlessness that would have crushed it.

87
00:07:57,079 --> 00:08:01,000
The vegetable world, however, has
its revenge. You may keep the guinea

88
00:08:01,079 --> 00:08:05,279
pig in a hutch, but how
will you pet the basilisk. The little

89
00:08:05,399 --> 00:08:11,839
sensitive plant in your garden amuses your
children, who will find pleasure also in

90
00:08:11,920 --> 00:08:16,360
seeking cock chaffers spin round on a
pin. But how could you transplant a

91
00:08:16,480 --> 00:08:22,959
vegetable that seizes the running deer,
strikes down the passing bird, and,

92
00:08:22,079 --> 00:08:28,560
once taking hold of him, sucks
the carcass of man himself till his matter

93
00:08:28,720 --> 00:08:33,919
becomes as vague as his mind,
and all his animate capabilities cannot snatch him

94
00:08:33,960 --> 00:08:41,200
from the terrible embrace of God.
Help him an inanimate tree. Many years

95
00:08:41,240 --> 00:08:45,879
ago, said my uncle, I
turned my restless steps towards Central Africa,

96
00:08:46,120 --> 00:08:50,320
and made the journey from whether Senegal
empties itself into the Atlantic to the Nile,

97
00:08:50,639 --> 00:08:56,320
skirting the Great Desert and reaching Nubia. On my way to the eastern

98
00:08:56,480 --> 00:09:01,240
coast, I had with me then
three native attendants, two of them brothers,

99
00:09:01,519 --> 00:09:05,279
the third Otona, a young savage
from the Gaboon uplands, a mere

100
00:09:05,360 --> 00:09:09,320
lad in his teens. And one
day, leaving my mule with the two

101
00:09:09,399 --> 00:09:13,279
men who were pitching my tent for
the night, I went on with my

102
00:09:13,440 --> 00:09:18,120
gun, the boy accompanying me,
towards a fern force, which I saw

103
00:09:18,200 --> 00:09:22,519
in the near distance. As I
approached it, I found the force was

104
00:09:22,600 --> 00:09:28,080
cut into two by a wide glade, and, seeing a small herd of

105
00:09:28,120 --> 00:09:33,240
the common antelope, an excellent beast
in the pot, browsing their way along

106
00:09:33,320 --> 00:09:37,360
the shaded side, I crept after
them, though ignorant of their real danger.

107
00:09:37,399 --> 00:09:43,039
The herd was suspicious and slowly trotting
along before me. Enticed me for

108
00:09:43,120 --> 00:09:48,039
a mile or more along the verge
of the fern growths. Turning a corner,

109
00:09:48,159 --> 00:09:54,039
I suddenly became aware of a solitary
tree growing in the middle of the

110
00:09:54,120 --> 00:09:58,600
glade, one tree alone. It
struck me at once that I had never

111
00:09:58,679 --> 00:10:03,879
seen a tree exactly like it before, But being intent upon venison for my

112
00:10:03,039 --> 00:10:07,559
supper, I looked at it only
long enough to satisfy my first surprise at

113
00:10:07,600 --> 00:10:13,320
seeing a single plant of such rich
growth flourishing luxuriantly in a spot where only

114
00:10:13,399 --> 00:10:18,799
the harsh fern canes seemed to thrive. The deer, meanwhile, were midway

115
00:10:18,879 --> 00:10:22,159
between me and the tree, and
looking at them, I saw they were

116
00:10:22,200 --> 00:10:28,039
going to cross the glade. Exactly
opposite them was an opening in the forest

117
00:10:28,200 --> 00:10:31,519
in which I should certainly have lost
my supper. So I fired into the

118
00:10:31,559 --> 00:10:35,559
middle of the family. As they
were filing before me. I hit a

119
00:10:35,639 --> 00:10:39,639
young fawn, and the rest of
the herd, wheeling round in their sudden

120
00:10:39,799 --> 00:10:45,399
terror, made off in the direction
of the tree, leaving the fawn struggling

121
00:10:45,440 --> 00:10:50,279
on the ground Otona. The boy
ran forward at my order to secure it,

122
00:10:50,480 --> 00:10:54,799
but the little creature, seeing him
coming, attempted to follow its comrades,

123
00:10:54,840 --> 00:10:58,799
and at a fair pace held on
their course. The herd had meanwhile

124
00:10:58,840 --> 00:11:01,879
reached the tree, but suddenly,
instead of passing under it, swerved in

125
00:11:01,960 --> 00:11:07,120
their career and swept round it at
some yards distance. Was I mad?

126
00:11:07,360 --> 00:11:11,120
Or did the plant really try to
catch the deer. On a sudden I

127
00:11:11,200 --> 00:11:16,720
saw, or thought I saw the
tree violently agitated, And while the ferns

128
00:11:16,759 --> 00:11:22,000
all round were standing motionless in the
dead evening air, its boughs were swayed

129
00:11:22,120 --> 00:11:26,039
by some sudden gust towards the herd, and swept in the force of their

130
00:11:26,120 --> 00:11:31,799
impulse, almost to the ground.
I drew my hand across my eyes,

131
00:11:31,120 --> 00:11:35,240
closed them for a moment, and
looked again. The tree was as motionless

132
00:11:35,279 --> 00:11:39,080
as myself towards it, and now
close to it, the boy was running

133
00:11:39,120 --> 00:11:43,840
in excited pursuit of the fawn.
He stretched out his hands to catch it.

134
00:11:43,840 --> 00:11:48,480
It bounded from his eager grasp.
Again he reached forward, and again

135
00:11:48,759 --> 00:11:54,000
it escaped him. There was another
rush forward, and the next instant,

136
00:11:54,159 --> 00:11:58,440
boy and deer were beneath the tree. And now there was no mistaking what

137
00:11:58,559 --> 00:12:05,120
I saw. The convulsed with motion, leaned forward, swept its thick foliaged

138
00:12:05,200 --> 00:12:09,200
boughs to the ground, and enveloped
from my sight the pursuer and the pursued.

139
00:12:09,679 --> 00:12:13,320
I was within a hundred yards,
and the cry of otuna from the

140
00:12:13,360 --> 00:12:18,399
midst of the tree came to me. In all the clearness of its agony.

141
00:12:18,799 --> 00:12:24,440
There was then one stifled, strangling
scream, and except for the agitation

142
00:12:24,600 --> 00:12:28,159
of the leaves where they had closed
upon the boy, there was not a

143
00:12:28,240 --> 00:12:33,840
sign of life. I called out
auturner, no answer came. I tried

144
00:12:33,840 --> 00:12:37,639
to call out again, but my
utterance was like that of some wild beast

145
00:12:37,200 --> 00:12:41,919
smitten at once with sudden tear and
its death wound. I stood there,

146
00:12:43,080 --> 00:12:48,039
changed from all semblance of a human
being. Not all the tears of earth

147
00:12:48,159 --> 00:12:52,799
together could have made me take my
eye from the awful plant, or my

148
00:12:52,000 --> 00:12:56,600
foot off the ground. I must
have stood thus for at least an hour,

149
00:12:56,960 --> 00:13:01,440
for the shadows had crept out from
the half across the glade before that

150
00:13:01,559 --> 00:13:09,159
hideous paroxysm of fear left me.
My first impulse then was to creep stealthily

151
00:13:09,240 --> 00:13:13,039
away, lest the tree should perceive
me. But my returning reason bade me

152
00:13:13,200 --> 00:13:18,799
approach it. The boy might have
fallen into the lair of some beast of

153
00:13:18,879 --> 00:13:22,120
prey, or perhaps the terrible life
in the tree was that of some great

154
00:13:22,200 --> 00:13:28,440
serpent among its branches. Preparing to
defend myself, I approached the silent tree,

155
00:13:28,559 --> 00:13:35,519
the harsh grass crisping beneath my feet
with a strange loudness. The cicadas

156
00:13:35,600 --> 00:13:39,639
in the forest, shrilling till the
air seemed throbbing round me with waves of

157
00:13:39,799 --> 00:13:46,000
sound. The terrible truth was soon
before me, in all its awful novelty.

158
00:13:46,559 --> 00:13:50,559
The vegetable first discovered my presence at
about fifty yards distance. I then

159
00:13:50,679 --> 00:13:56,919
became aware of the stealthy motion among
the thick lipped leaves, reminding me of

160
00:13:56,960 --> 00:14:01,799
some wild beast slowly gathering itself up
from long sleep. A vast coil of

161
00:14:01,919 --> 00:14:07,960
snakes in restless motion. Have you
ever seen bees hanging from a bough,

162
00:14:07,200 --> 00:14:11,879
a great cluster of bodies, bee
clinging to bee, and by striking the

163
00:14:11,919 --> 00:14:18,399
bough or agitating the air, caused
that massed life to begin sulkily to disintegrate,

164
00:14:18,559 --> 00:14:24,720
each insect asserting its individual right to
move. And do you remember how,

165
00:14:24,799 --> 00:14:30,600
without one bee leaving the pencile cluster, the whole became gradually instinct with

166
00:14:30,759 --> 00:14:37,000
sullen life and horrid, with a
multitudinous motion. I came within twenty yards

167
00:14:37,039 --> 00:14:41,080
of it. The tree was quivering
through every branch, muttering for blood,

168
00:14:41,200 --> 00:14:46,919
and helpless, with rooted feet,
yearning with every branch towards me. It

169
00:14:46,120 --> 00:14:50,759
was that terror of the deep sea
which the men of the northern fiords dread,

170
00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:56,519
and which anchored upon some sunken rock, stretches into vein space. Its

171
00:14:56,639 --> 00:15:03,919
longing arms pellucid as the sea itself, and as relentless, maimed Polypheme groping

172
00:15:05,039 --> 00:15:09,639
for his victims. Each separate leaf
was agitated and hungry. Like hands,

173
00:15:09,679 --> 00:15:16,240
they fumbled together, their fleshy palms, curling upon themselves and again unfolding,

174
00:15:16,440 --> 00:15:20,240
closing on each other, and falling
apart again, thick, helpless, fingerless

175
00:15:20,320 --> 00:15:26,240
hands rather lips or tongues than hands, dimpled closely with little cup like hollows.

176
00:15:26,679 --> 00:15:31,720
I approached nearer and nearer, step
by step, till I saw that

177
00:15:31,799 --> 00:15:37,080
these soft horrors were all of them
in motion, opening and closing incessantly.

178
00:15:37,519 --> 00:15:41,480
I was now ten yards of the
farthest reaching bough. Every part of it

179
00:15:41,600 --> 00:15:46,679
was hysterical with excitement. The agitation
of its members was awful, sickening,

180
00:15:46,759 --> 00:15:50,679
yet fascinating, in an ecstasy of
eagerness for the food so near them.

181
00:15:50,799 --> 00:15:54,480
The leaves turned upon each other,
two meeting, would suck together face to

182
00:15:54,559 --> 00:16:00,399
face with a force that compressed their
joint thickness to a half, thinning the

183
00:16:00,440 --> 00:16:04,279
two leaves into one. Now grappling
in a volume like a double shell,

184
00:16:04,559 --> 00:16:10,080
writhing like some green worm, and
at last, faint with the violence of

185
00:16:10,080 --> 00:16:15,200
the paroxysm, would slowly separate,
falling apart. As leeches gorged drop off

186
00:16:15,240 --> 00:16:21,679
the limbs. A sticky dew glistened
in the dimples, welled over and trickled

187
00:16:21,720 --> 00:16:25,639
down the leaf. The sound of
it dripping from leaf to leaf made it

188
00:16:25,720 --> 00:16:30,440
seem as if the tree was muttering
to itself. The beautiful golden fruit as

189
00:16:30,480 --> 00:16:33,519
they swung here and there, were
clutched now by one leaf and now by

190
00:16:33,559 --> 00:16:38,279
another, held for a moment close
enfolded from the sight, and then as

191
00:16:38,320 --> 00:16:45,480
suddenly released here a large leaf,
vampire like, had sucked out the juices

192
00:16:45,519 --> 00:16:48,759
of a smaller one. It hung
limp and bloodless, like a carcass of

193
00:16:48,840 --> 00:16:55,879
which the weasel has tired. I
watched the terrible struggle till my starting eyes,

194
00:16:56,279 --> 00:17:00,639
strained by intense attention, refused their
offers. And I can hardly say

195
00:17:00,639 --> 00:17:04,359
what I saw, But the tree
before me seemed to have become a live

196
00:17:04,599 --> 00:17:08,279
beast. Above me, I felt
conscious, was a great limb, and

197
00:17:08,359 --> 00:17:15,559
each of its thousand clammy hands reached
downwards towards me, fumbling, It strained,

198
00:17:15,799 --> 00:17:19,160
shivered, rocked, and heaved.
It flung itself about in despair.

199
00:17:19,599 --> 00:17:25,200
The boughs, tantalized to madness with
the presence of flesh, were tossed to

200
00:17:25,279 --> 00:17:29,680
this side and to that in the
agony of a frantic desire. The leaves

201
00:17:29,720 --> 00:17:33,400
were wrung together as the hands of
one driven to madness by sudden misery.

202
00:17:34,039 --> 00:17:38,799
I felt the vile dew spurting from
the tense veins fall upon me. My

203
00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:45,200
clothes began to give out a strange
odor. The ground I stood on glistened

204
00:17:45,319 --> 00:17:49,960
with animal juices. Was I bewildered
by terror? Had my senses abandoned me

205
00:17:51,039 --> 00:17:53,519
in my need? I know not, But the trees seemed to me to

206
00:17:53,559 --> 00:17:59,720
be alive, leaning over towards me. It seemed to be pulling up its

207
00:17:59,799 --> 00:18:03,559
room roots from the softened ground,
and to be moving towards me. A

208
00:18:03,720 --> 00:18:11,200
mountainous monster with myriad lips mumbling together
for my life was upon me, Like

209
00:18:11,279 --> 00:18:15,559
one who desperately defends himself from imminent
death. I made an effort for life

210
00:18:15,720 --> 00:18:21,359
and fired my gun at the approaching
horror. To my dizzied senses, the

211
00:18:21,480 --> 00:18:26,359
sound seemed far off, but the
shock of the recoil partially recalled me to

212
00:18:26,440 --> 00:18:30,279
myself, and starting back, I
reloaded. The shots had torn their way

213
00:18:30,559 --> 00:18:34,920
into the soft body of the great
thing. The trunk as it received the

214
00:18:36,000 --> 00:18:40,319
wound, shuddered, and the whole
tree was struck with a sudden quiver.

215
00:18:41,039 --> 00:18:45,160
A fruit fell down, slipping from
the leaves, now rigid with swollen veins

216
00:18:45,200 --> 00:18:51,000
as from carven foliage. Then I
saw a large arm slowly droop, and

217
00:18:51,079 --> 00:18:55,960
without a sound, it was severed
from the juice fattened bowl and sank down

218
00:18:56,119 --> 00:19:02,000
softly, noiselessly through the glistening leaves. I fired again, and another vile

219
00:19:02,160 --> 00:19:07,480
fragment was powerless dead. At each
discharge, the terrible vegetable yielded a life

220
00:19:07,599 --> 00:19:11,599
piecemeal. I attacked it, killing
here a leaf and there a branch.

221
00:19:11,920 --> 00:19:17,640
My fury increased with a slaughter,
till when my ammunition was exhausted, the

222
00:19:17,680 --> 00:19:22,680
splendid giant was left a wreck,
as if some hurricane had torn through it.

223
00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:26,799
On the ground lay heaped together,
the fragments, struggling, rising and

224
00:19:26,839 --> 00:19:33,480
falling, gasping over them, drooped
in dying languor. A few stricken boughs,

225
00:19:33,880 --> 00:19:37,880
while upright in the midst stood dripping
at every joint the glistening trunk.

226
00:19:38,279 --> 00:19:42,720
My continued firing had brought up one
of my men on my mule. He

227
00:19:42,839 --> 00:19:47,400
dared not, so he told me
come near me, thinking me mad.

228
00:19:47,599 --> 00:19:51,839
I had now drawn my hunting knife, and with this was fighting with the

229
00:19:51,960 --> 00:19:56,559
leaves. Yes, but each leaf
was instinct with a hard life, and

230
00:19:56,720 --> 00:20:00,440
more than once I felt my hand
entangled for a moment and seized as if

231
00:20:00,480 --> 00:20:06,000
by sharp lips. Ignorant of the
presence of my companion, I made a

232
00:20:06,079 --> 00:20:11,480
rush forward over the fallen foliage,
and with a last paroxysm of frenzy,

233
00:20:11,680 --> 00:20:15,680
drove my knife up to the handle
into the soft bowl, and, slipping

234
00:20:15,720 --> 00:20:23,240
on the fast congealing sap, fell
exhausted and unconscious among the still panting leaves.

235
00:20:25,079 --> 00:20:29,400
My companions carried me back to the
camp, and, after vainly searching

236
00:20:29,440 --> 00:20:36,079
for otuna, awaited my return to
consciousness. Two or three hours elapsed before

237
00:20:36,119 --> 00:20:40,359
I could speak, and several days
before I could approach the terrible thing.

238
00:20:41,079 --> 00:20:44,880
My men would not go near it. It was quite dead, for as

239
00:20:44,920 --> 00:20:49,079
we came up, a great build
bird with gaudy plumage that had been securely

240
00:20:49,119 --> 00:20:53,960
feasting on the decaying fruit flew up
from the wreck. We removed the rotting

241
00:20:55,079 --> 00:20:59,680
foliage, and there among the dead
leaves, still limp, with juices and

242
00:20:59,720 --> 00:21:04,039
pots filed round the roots, we
found the ghastly relics of many former meals

243
00:21:04,279 --> 00:21:11,319
and its last nourishment, the corpse
of little Otuna. To have removed the

244
00:21:11,400 --> 00:21:15,559
leaves would have taken too long,
so we buried the body as it was,

245
00:21:15,680 --> 00:21:21,279
with a hundred vampire leaves still clinging
to it. Such as nearly as

246
00:21:21,319 --> 00:21:26,119
I remember it was my uncle's story
of the man eating Tree. End of

247
00:21:26,200 --> 00:21:29,759
the Man Eating Tree by phil Robinson