1
00:00:00,280 --> 00:00:08,560
The Snake Fiend by Farnsworth right.
Even as a child, Jack Creamy delighted

2
00:00:08,599 --> 00:00:13,599
in collecting reptiles, and he seemed
to absorb much of their venomous nature.

3
00:00:14,839 --> 00:00:20,160
His best loved pet was a large
black snake, But when it caused him

4
00:00:20,199 --> 00:00:25,320
a whipping by crawling into his father's
bedroom, he roasted it over a slow

5
00:00:25,399 --> 00:00:30,800
fire in a large pot, listening
with glee to its agonized hissing, and

6
00:00:30,920 --> 00:00:34,880
pushing it back with a stick when
it strove to crawl out of the searing

7
00:00:34,920 --> 00:00:39,840
container. It was no cause for
wonder, then, that his burning love

8
00:00:40,039 --> 00:00:45,200
for the girl of his dreams turned
to fierce hate when she became the bride

9
00:00:45,200 --> 00:00:51,479
of another. Creamy's sentiment for Marjorie
Bressey was aroused by her fine Italian beauty,

10
00:00:51,799 --> 00:00:55,799
which reminded him of his mother.
He could have fallen in love with

11
00:00:55,960 --> 00:01:00,280
any other girl as easily if he
had set his mind to it in the

12
00:01:00,320 --> 00:01:06,799
same way. By dint of comparing
her with his mother's picture, he conceived

13
00:01:06,840 --> 00:01:11,319
a great admiration for her. Then
he wished to possess her, to be

14
00:01:11,439 --> 00:01:17,400
her lord and master, to marry
her, gazing on her every day with

15
00:01:17,560 --> 00:01:23,400
this thought in his mind, his
admiration grew to a burning passion. Of

16
00:01:23,480 --> 00:01:26,319
all this, he said nothing to
Marjorie, and then it was too late.

17
00:01:27,840 --> 00:01:33,760
Marjorie loved and was loved by Alan
Jimmerson, a young civil engineer.

18
00:01:34,680 --> 00:01:40,920
Creamy neither threatened nor cajoled. He
simply accepted the fact and meditated revenge.

19
00:01:42,079 --> 00:01:45,879
He was all smiles at their wedding, and he gave them a wedding present

20
00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:51,319
beyond what he could reasonably afford,
while he planned to tumble their happiness in

21
00:01:51,439 --> 00:01:57,879
ruins about their ears. After a
short honeymoon, Jimmerson departed with his wife

22
00:01:57,239 --> 00:02:02,599
to take up his duties as resident
engineer of some construction work on the Western

23
00:02:02,680 --> 00:02:09,599
Railroad. Creamy, his face glowing
with friendship and goodwill, was the last

24
00:02:09,639 --> 00:02:15,039
to clasp Marjorie's hand in farewell as
the train pulled out of the station.

25
00:02:15,879 --> 00:02:21,719
Write to me often, Marjorie,
was his parting injunction. Send me a

26
00:02:21,800 --> 00:02:23,800
letter as soon as you get settled, and let me know how you are

27
00:02:23,840 --> 00:02:30,159
getting along. I don't want to
lose touch with either of you, and

28
00:02:30,280 --> 00:02:36,240
he meant it. Marjorie was fond
of the handsome, manly looking Italian youth

29
00:02:36,719 --> 00:02:40,159
and liked him immensely as a friend, although she had never been in love

30
00:02:40,199 --> 00:02:46,080
with him. No sooner was she
settled in her new home than she wrote

31
00:02:46,159 --> 00:02:51,680
him a long letter telling of her
husband's work, the bleakness of the desert

32
00:02:51,680 --> 00:02:58,159
country, and the strange newness of
her life. She and her husband occupied

33
00:02:58,159 --> 00:03:04,319
a cabin together up from the bulk
housing of the construction camp in the sagebrush

34
00:03:04,360 --> 00:03:10,039
region of northern California, not far
from the Nevada border. A fierce joy

35
00:03:10,120 --> 00:03:15,479
and exultation leapt in Creamy's heart when
he read Marjorie's letter. You would like

36
00:03:15,560 --> 00:03:20,280
this country better than I do,
she wrote, for it is infested with

37
00:03:20,400 --> 00:03:24,919
rattlesnakes. The bare desert rocks on
the ridge four miles from our cabin are

38
00:03:24,960 --> 00:03:30,479
swarming with them. Uugh, they
sun themselves in tangled masses, Alan says,

39
00:03:30,759 --> 00:03:35,800
But truly, I can't bring myself
to go near the place. I

40
00:03:35,879 --> 00:03:39,560
get quite too much of snakes without
that, for we are constantly killing them

41
00:03:39,639 --> 00:03:45,599
in the sagebrush. This country has
never been settled, and except for an

42
00:03:45,599 --> 00:03:51,199
occasional prospector, there was nobody to
kill them before the surveyors came. The

43
00:03:51,280 --> 00:03:54,479
Indians never bothered the snakes, but
passed by them on the other side of

44
00:03:54,479 --> 00:04:00,000
a sagebrush and leave them in peace. Creamy scored these in red ink,

45
00:04:00,599 --> 00:04:04,919
word by word, as if to
blazon them on his memory, and he

46
00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:11,400
drew little pictures of snakes on the
margin. He burned out Marjorie's signature with

47
00:04:11,479 --> 00:04:16,120
acid, spitefully watching with minute care
as the letters faded, and gleaning a

48
00:04:16,199 --> 00:04:23,160
savage satisfaction from seeing the paper run
away under the venomous bite of the poison.

49
00:04:24,399 --> 00:04:28,399
Then he fed the paper to the
flames as he had roasted the black

50
00:04:28,439 --> 00:04:33,839
snake years before, and watched the
missive burn into black ashes and crumble slowly

51
00:04:33,879 --> 00:04:41,959
away, page by page into gray
dust. Followed Creamy's pursuit of the pair.

52
00:04:42,879 --> 00:04:46,120
His arrival was not expected by either
Jimison or Marjorie, but it was

53
00:04:46,160 --> 00:04:53,279
nonetheless welcome for both of them.
Like the genial, companionable Italian life on

54
00:04:53,319 --> 00:04:58,600
the edge of the desert had few
distractions at best, Creamy's eyes lit with

55
00:04:58,720 --> 00:05:03,480
genuine pleasure at the sight of his
prospective victims. The joy on both sides

56
00:05:03,959 --> 00:05:09,920
was sincere. No, this isn't
a pleasure trip, he explained to them,

57
00:05:10,120 --> 00:05:13,920
although I expect to have pleasure enough
out of it before I get through.

58
00:05:14,920 --> 00:05:19,680
I have turned from collecting reptiles to
studying their lives and habits. I

59
00:05:19,759 --> 00:05:25,639
intend to write a monograph on rattlesnakes. When I got your letter, Marjorie,

60
00:05:25,759 --> 00:05:30,839
I knew that I could do no
better than to come here. I

61
00:05:30,920 --> 00:05:34,079
expect to become very well acquainted with
that ridge you wrote about, where the

62
00:05:34,120 --> 00:05:42,680
snakes sun themselves in tangled masses.
Marjorie shuddered, and Creamy laughed. Well,

63
00:05:42,720 --> 00:05:46,120
don't bring any of your snakes around
here, she said. I turned

64
00:05:46,160 --> 00:05:49,439
cold, and something grips at my
insides every time I hear one rattle.

65
00:05:51,800 --> 00:05:56,959
Creamy built himself a small cabin about
a mile from the Jimmersons, in the

66
00:05:56,959 --> 00:06:02,040
direction of the rattlesnake ridge he had
during the shack tastefully, and Marjorie's deft

67
00:06:02,040 --> 00:06:09,639
hand gave it a distinctively feminine neatness
and charm to its appearance. He became

68
00:06:09,680 --> 00:06:14,600
a frequent visitor at the Jimmerson's cabin, and evening after evening he read to

69
00:06:14,639 --> 00:06:21,040
them in his melodious, well modulated
voice. Sometimes the draftsman or transitman would

70
00:06:21,040 --> 00:06:27,480
come in and Creamy would join in
playing cards until late at night. He

71
00:06:27,560 --> 00:06:30,720
seemed to take pleasure in the company
of Marjorie and her husband, and his

72
00:06:30,839 --> 00:06:34,800
face always lit up at the sight
of them, especially when they were together.

73
00:06:36,000 --> 00:06:40,800
But it was the joy of a
boy who sees the apples ripening for

74
00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:45,920
him on the neighbor's tree and knows
that they will soon be ready for him

75
00:06:45,959 --> 00:06:51,079
to pluck. He was almost happy
when he was meditating his frightful revenge.

76
00:06:53,480 --> 00:06:58,800
As his preparations drew near their end, he often spent whole hours gloating over

77
00:06:58,839 --> 00:07:03,879
the fate in store the couple.
For Marjorie, in loving Jimmerson had aroused

78
00:07:03,959 --> 00:07:10,600
him to insane jealousy, and Jimmerson, having robbed him of his heart's desire,

79
00:07:11,199 --> 00:07:15,639
was included in Creamy's fierce hate of
the girl who had crossed him.

80
00:07:15,399 --> 00:07:20,720
Then one evening, Marjorie and her
husband happened in at Creamy's cabin. Marjorie

81
00:07:20,720 --> 00:07:26,360
expressed her horror at the thought of
Creamy wandering among the snake infested rocks of

82
00:07:26,399 --> 00:07:30,920
the Rattlesnake Ridge. The snake hunter
seated her on a box that contained a

83
00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:38,839
twisting knot of the venomous reptile.
Marjorie, serenely unaware, talked on blithely,

84
00:07:39,439 --> 00:07:45,079
and Creamy's merry laugh pealed out at
regular intervals. He was in right

85
00:07:45,160 --> 00:07:48,519
jovial mood that evening, for he
was ready to spring the death trap prepared

86
00:07:48,600 --> 00:07:56,439
for his two friends. He only
awaited a favorable opportunity to strike. The

87
00:07:56,519 --> 00:08:01,120
opportunity came when the surveyor's cook,
crazed by bad whiskey, smashed up the

88
00:08:01,199 --> 00:08:07,000
kitchen. Jimmerson discharged him, and
the cook buttered threats of a horrible vengeance.

89
00:08:09,079 --> 00:08:13,800
Shut up, Jimmerson ordered, this
is the third time you've been seeing

90
00:08:13,879 --> 00:08:18,199
snakes, and now you've wrecked the
cookshack. You ought to be sent to

91
00:08:18,319 --> 00:08:24,600
jail or a lunatic asylum. It's
you that'll be seeing snakes. The cooks

92
00:08:24,600 --> 00:08:28,399
fluttered, you and that Italian wife
of yours will see plenty of them,

93
00:08:28,920 --> 00:08:33,600
red and green, and Jimmerson struck
him across the mouth and set him on

94
00:08:33,600 --> 00:08:39,559
his way. This was in the
evening. The draftsman and the rodsmen went

95
00:08:39,600 --> 00:08:45,159
to town the next day to hire
a new cook, while Jimmerson and Marjorie

96
00:08:45,279 --> 00:08:48,919
went on an outing at the headwaters
of the Feather Creek. It was Sunday,

97
00:08:50,360 --> 00:08:54,679
and they intended to spend the day
together, Cramini declined their invitation to

98
00:08:54,720 --> 00:09:00,000
accompany them. It was the molting
season, he explained, when the snakes

99
00:09:00,080 --> 00:09:03,080
were casting off their skins. He
could ill afford to lose a day of

100
00:09:03,120 --> 00:09:09,840
observation at this time, for he
had several perplexing points to clear up before

101
00:09:09,879 --> 00:09:16,720
writing his monograph. Cramini walked fearlessly
from rock to rock of the Rattlesnake Ridge,

102
00:09:16,000 --> 00:09:22,519
chuckling to himself the tangled, massive
snakes of which he had been told

103
00:09:22,159 --> 00:09:28,320
existed only in rumor. Although there
were snakes in plenty if one looked for

104
00:09:28,360 --> 00:09:33,600
them. Tangled masses would serve his
purpose later, but he had gathered them

105
00:09:33,679 --> 00:09:39,879
here and there, one or two
at a time. By noon, the

106
00:09:39,960 --> 00:09:46,720
little cluster of cabins occupied by the
engineers was deserted. Marjorie and her husband

107
00:09:46,039 --> 00:09:50,720
had gone since sun up, and
the surveyors were all in town. Not

108
00:09:50,879 --> 00:09:54,759
a soul was stirring in the neighborhood
of the shacks, and the men at

109
00:09:54,759 --> 00:10:01,679
the construction camp were mostly lying around
in their bunks playing cards. Cramenie nailed

110
00:10:01,720 --> 00:10:07,720
fast the windows of Jimmerson's cabin.
Then he entered and secured the bed to

111
00:10:07,759 --> 00:10:13,039
the floor so that it could not
be moved. He laboriously carried his box

112
00:10:13,080 --> 00:10:16,679
of snakes a mile or more from
his room to the little gully behind the

113
00:10:16,720 --> 00:10:22,799
surveyor's cabins, and hid them in
the sage brush. Marjorie and her husband

114
00:10:22,840 --> 00:10:28,240
came back from their tramp after dark
that evening, dog tired, Marjorie cooked

115
00:10:28,240 --> 00:10:35,200
a little supper, and by ten
o'clock the two were asleep. Cramini entered

116
00:10:35,200 --> 00:10:39,320
their cabin about midnight. They were
fast in the chains of slumber, and

117
00:10:39,399 --> 00:10:45,440
he did not find it necessary to
muffle his tread. He removed the chairs,

118
00:10:45,879 --> 00:10:50,840
shoes, clothes, and even the
hand mirror and toilet articles. Everything

119
00:10:52,120 --> 00:10:56,639
that might serve as a weapon,
no matter how slight, he took away.

120
00:10:58,080 --> 00:11:01,080
Then he brought his snakes from the
gully and collected them in front of

121
00:11:01,120 --> 00:11:05,759
the cabin. When he had assembled
them all, he knocked the top from

122
00:11:05,799 --> 00:11:11,600
the largest box, carried it into
the room, and, in the audacity

123
00:11:11,639 --> 00:11:16,519
of his certain triumph, he dumped
the twisted mass of rattlesnakes on the bed

124
00:11:16,559 --> 00:11:22,879
where Marjorie and her husband lay asleep. The other boxes he emptied quickly just

125
00:11:22,919 --> 00:11:26,600
inside the door and withdrew, for
he had no wish to set foot among

126
00:11:26,639 --> 00:11:33,799
the venomous serpents. Revenge is never
satisfied if the retribution overtakes the avenger,

127
00:11:33,279 --> 00:11:37,840
and Cromini had no wish to share
the fate of his victims. He locked

128
00:11:37,840 --> 00:11:43,480
the door from the outside and battened
it. Then he removed the boxes that

129
00:11:43,519 --> 00:11:48,720
had contained the snakes and returned to
his cabin and peacefully went to sleep.

130
00:11:50,519 --> 00:11:54,559
Marjorie awoke with the first rays of
the sun and lazily opened her eyes.

131
00:11:56,519 --> 00:12:00,320
Her heart leapt suddenly into her throat, and she was white awake in an

132
00:12:00,320 --> 00:12:05,799
instant. A flat, squat head
of a rattlesnake was creeping along her breast.

133
00:12:05,559 --> 00:12:11,000
Its beady eyes were fixed on her
face, and its red tongue flicked

134
00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:15,080
before her like a forked flame.
For a moment, she thought she was

135
00:12:15,080 --> 00:12:18,399
still dreaming, but the familiar outlines
of the room lying themselves in her consciousness,

136
00:12:18,840 --> 00:12:24,600
and she knew that what she saw
was real. Her shriek rent the

137
00:12:24,639 --> 00:12:28,519
air as she threw back the bedclothes
and sprang to the floor. She stepped

138
00:12:28,559 --> 00:12:33,399
on a coiled serpent, which sounded
an ominous warning as it struck out.

139
00:12:33,399 --> 00:12:39,399
Blindly, she quickly climbed back on
the bed and stood on the pillow,

140
00:12:39,679 --> 00:12:46,039
screaming. Her husband was beside her, at once hazily trying to understand the

141
00:12:46,080 --> 00:12:50,639
import of the hysterical torrent of words
she was sobbing into his ears. For

142
00:12:50,720 --> 00:12:54,919
an instant he thought she must be
in the clutch of some horrible nightmare.

143
00:12:56,120 --> 00:13:01,799
Then a quick startled glance around the
room turned his blood to ice. There

144
00:13:01,879 --> 00:13:07,639
was now a continuous rattling, as
of dry leaves blowing against a stone wall.

145
00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:13,720
For Marjory's screams had galvanized the snakes
into activity. The room was filled

146
00:13:13,919 --> 00:13:18,399
with their angry din It sounded in
Jimmerson's ears like the crack of doom.

147
00:13:20,320 --> 00:13:26,000
The floor seemed covered with the creeping
reptiles. Some were coiled, the whirring

148
00:13:26,039 --> 00:13:31,120
tips of their tails making an indistinct
blur as they rattled, and their heads

149
00:13:31,320 --> 00:13:37,039
swaying slowly back and forth. Others
writhed along the floor, their venomous squat

150
00:13:37,080 --> 00:13:43,679
heads thrusting forward and withdrawing, and
their tongues darting out like red flames.

151
00:13:46,080 --> 00:13:48,759
On the bed itself, there was
a motion underneath the thrown back coverlet,

152
00:13:50,200 --> 00:13:54,320
and the ugly gray head of a
thick, four foot snake protruded from under

153
00:13:54,320 --> 00:14:00,279
it, the evil eyes shining dully
as if through a film of dust.

154
00:14:01,120 --> 00:14:07,120
It extricated itself and coiled as if
to strike. While Marjorie shrank fearfully against

155
00:14:07,120 --> 00:14:11,799
the wall. Wide eyed with horror, Jimmerson attacked the reptile with the pillow,

156
00:14:13,080 --> 00:14:16,440
sweeping it off the bed onto the
floor. He quickly looked around him

157
00:14:16,480 --> 00:14:20,960
for a weapon and saw at once
that he was trapped. There was not

158
00:14:22,039 --> 00:14:26,320
even a shoe or a pin cushion
with which to fight the crawling, rattling

159
00:14:26,360 --> 00:14:31,279
creatures. He tried to rock the
bed toward the window as boys moved sawhorses

160
00:14:31,320 --> 00:14:37,200
forward while sitting on them, but
the bed was firmly fastened to the floor,

161
00:14:37,519 --> 00:14:39,480
and in his efforts to release it, he was bitten on the wrist

162
00:14:39,559 --> 00:14:43,080
by the strike of a large snake
coiled near the foot of the bed.

163
00:14:45,200 --> 00:14:48,519
Jimmerson flung the reptile across the room
and sprang to the floor with an oath,

164
00:14:50,120 --> 00:14:54,960
crushing a large rattler with his heel
as he jumped. He raced to

165
00:14:54,000 --> 00:14:58,879
the door and wrestled with it for
a full minute before he discovered that he

166
00:14:58,960 --> 00:15:03,720
and Marjorie were locked in that serpent
hole. He sprang to the window and

167
00:15:03,759 --> 00:15:07,519
felt a sharp stab of pain in
the flesh of his calf, as the

168
00:15:07,559 --> 00:15:13,440
open jaws of another reptile found their
mark, and the poisoned fangs were embedded

169
00:15:13,519 --> 00:15:18,799
deep in the flesh. The window, like the door, was nailed fast,

170
00:15:18,440 --> 00:15:24,519
but he broke out the glass with
his bare fists, unmindful of the

171
00:15:24,519 --> 00:15:28,879
blood on his lacerated hands. He
was back at the bedside, treading over

172
00:15:28,000 --> 00:15:35,039
reptiles with his bare feet. Marjorie
lay on the bed unconscious. He lifted

173
00:15:35,080 --> 00:15:39,519
her in his bleeding arms and hurled
her through the window to safety. He

174
00:15:39,559 --> 00:15:45,200
struggled out after her, tearing open
his bitten leg on the jagged pieces of

175
00:15:45,240 --> 00:15:50,919
glass still left in the window frame. The spurting blood drenched him, and

176
00:15:50,080 --> 00:15:56,960
he leaned, faint and dizzy against
the cabin. As three of his surveyors

177
00:15:56,000 --> 00:16:03,159
came running up, having been attracted
by margine screams. In almost incoherent words,

178
00:16:03,200 --> 00:16:07,360
he told them what had happened.
He asked them to make immediate search

179
00:16:07,720 --> 00:16:12,720
for the discharged cook, for there
was no doubt in Jimmerson's mind that it

180
00:16:12,840 --> 00:16:18,039
was the cook who had placed the
snakes in the room. Then the sky

181
00:16:18,200 --> 00:16:23,840
went suddenly black before his eyes,
and he lost consciousness. At that minute,

182
00:16:23,879 --> 00:16:29,320
Crimini was waking from a peaceful dream. He recalled what he had done

183
00:16:29,360 --> 00:16:33,279
the night before, and blissfully mused
on what must be taking place in the

184
00:16:33,360 --> 00:16:41,039
Jimmerson cabin. A phantasmagorical succession of
pictures weltered in his mind. Marjorie and

185
00:16:41,120 --> 00:16:48,200
her husband fighting with bare hands against
the serpents, bitten a score of times

186
00:16:48,279 --> 00:16:52,799
by the angry fangs of the rattlesnakes, clinging to each other in terror,

187
00:16:52,600 --> 00:16:59,080
sinking to the floor in agony as
the poisons swelled their tortured limbs, and

188
00:16:59,240 --> 00:17:06,880
overcame them, lying green and blue
in death, with rattlesnakes crawling and hissing

189
00:17:06,920 --> 00:17:12,480
over their dead bodies. It is
remarkable how few people die from rattlesnake bites,

190
00:17:12,960 --> 00:17:19,119
even when as badly bitten as Jimmerson
was. Probably not one adult victim

191
00:17:19,200 --> 00:17:26,599
in a hundred succumbs to the venom. Although mistaken popular belief considers rattlesnake poison

192
00:17:27,119 --> 00:17:33,319
as fatal as the death potion of
the borges, Jimmerson had known too many

193
00:17:33,400 --> 00:17:37,359
cases of snake bite to believe his
case hopeless. He did not give up

194
00:17:37,359 --> 00:17:42,480
and die, nor did he try
to poison his system with whiskey. He

195
00:17:42,559 --> 00:17:48,240
knew that this condition was serious,
but he let rest and promagnate. A

196
00:17:48,319 --> 00:17:53,839
potash rubbed into his wounds affect a
cure. The bleeding from the lacerated leg

197
00:17:55,160 --> 00:18:00,519
had almost entirely washed out the poison, and there was little swelling. The

198
00:18:00,559 --> 00:18:07,359
pain in his swollen wrist, however, distended almost to bursting, kept him

199
00:18:07,359 --> 00:18:11,160
from sleeping, and the sickly green
hue of the bite distressed him, but

200
00:18:11,240 --> 00:18:18,079
it did not kill him. Creamy, careful observer of reptiles though he was,

201
00:18:18,480 --> 00:18:22,400
had never known an actual case of
snake bite, and he shared the

202
00:18:22,440 --> 00:18:27,680
popular illusion that the bite of the
rattlesnake dooms its victims to death. Hence,

203
00:18:27,720 --> 00:18:33,160
he was certain of the complete success
of his revenge, and his gloating

204
00:18:33,200 --> 00:18:37,559
glee was unclouded by even the shadow
of a doubt that Marjorie and her husband

205
00:18:37,920 --> 00:18:44,640
had been killed in his death trap. He awaited only the supreme joy of

206
00:18:44,799 --> 00:18:49,799
drinking in the details of his success
to feel the exultant thrill of complete victory.

207
00:18:52,559 --> 00:18:56,519
As Creamy sat alone two days after
the horrible morning, Jimmerson was limping

208
00:18:56,640 --> 00:19:03,599
slowly toward his cabin. His swollen
hand still pained him badly, and there

209
00:19:03,680 --> 00:19:07,240
was a dull ache in his ankle
when he put too much weight on it,

210
00:19:07,000 --> 00:19:12,119
but he thought the fresh air would
benefit him, Supporting himself with a

211
00:19:12,200 --> 00:19:18,279
cane and leaning heavily on Marjorie at
times, he went painfully toward the young

212
00:19:18,319 --> 00:19:23,240
Italian's deserted home. Not once had
his suspicions pointed toward Creamy as the author

213
00:19:23,279 --> 00:19:29,359
of the crime, for the guilt
of the lunatic cook seemed all too clear.

214
00:19:30,440 --> 00:19:36,279
Besides, he liked Creamy for his
genial camaraderie, his joviality and good

215
00:19:36,359 --> 00:19:41,240
humor, and his frank interest in
everything that concerned either him or Marjorie.

216
00:19:42,319 --> 00:19:48,119
So intent was the snake fiend on
passing the torments of his victims before his

217
00:19:48,240 --> 00:19:52,920
fancy, that he did not hear
the knock on his cabin door. His

218
00:19:53,079 --> 00:19:57,119
brain was too busy to heed the
message sent by his ears, for he

219
00:19:57,319 --> 00:20:03,359
was feasting on the mental and physical
tortures that Jimmerson and Marjorie must have endured

220
00:20:03,640 --> 00:20:10,279
before they lay cold in death on
the floor of the cabin, hideously discolored

221
00:20:10,279 --> 00:20:15,640
by the venom of the rattlesnakes by
degrees. He became conscious that he was

222
00:20:15,680 --> 00:20:21,599
not alone. Two persons stood before
him, and he raised a vengeful spirit

223
00:20:22,039 --> 00:20:26,880
on the story he had been waiting
two days to hear. Even when he

224
00:20:26,960 --> 00:20:32,000
gazed at those whom he had consigned
to a horrible death, the thought that

225
00:20:32,039 --> 00:20:37,400
they were alive did not permeate his
consciousness. The idea of failure had never

226
00:20:37,599 --> 00:20:44,759
entered his mind for even an instant. They were dead, beyond the peradventure

227
00:20:44,880 --> 00:20:52,319
of a doubt, and now their
avenging ghosts stood before him. Krimy dropped

228
00:20:52,359 --> 00:20:57,039
to his knees in white terror and
crawled behind his chair. He clasped and

229
00:20:57,240 --> 00:21:04,279
unclasped his hands in agony of fear. Sweat poured from his face and bathed

230
00:21:04,319 --> 00:21:11,400
his body. He implored mercy.
He screamed for forgiveness. He gibbered like

231
00:21:11,480 --> 00:21:18,480
a frightened ape. Half forgotten words
in Italian learned from his mother's knee fell

232
00:21:18,519 --> 00:21:22,680
from his lips. He pleaded and
begged for his life, crawling on his

233
00:21:22,799 --> 00:21:29,640
face toward the amazed couple in an
endeavor to clasp their knees. As the

234
00:21:29,720 --> 00:21:34,119
meaning of his broken ejaculations was borne
in on them. A tremendous loathing and

235
00:21:34,200 --> 00:21:41,480
disgust overcame them. Marjorie clung to
her husband, unnerved at the repulsive sight

236
00:21:41,960 --> 00:21:45,640
of the malicious coward groveling on the
floor and trying to kiss their feet.

237
00:21:47,839 --> 00:21:52,960
Cramini shrieked and gnawed his hands as
he saw the avenging angels of his victims

238
00:21:52,359 --> 00:21:57,960
leave the cabin. It was impossible
for the stern hand of the law to

239
00:21:59,079 --> 00:22:03,519
inflict greater punishment on Jack Cremine than
his own malice had wrought for him.

240
00:22:06,079 --> 00:22:11,960
To day, he occupies a padded
cell in a hospital for the incurably insane.

241
00:22:12,960 --> 00:22:18,200
The End of the Snake Fiend by
Farnsworth right