Speaker 1: Did you have too many Easter eggs today? Dreaming about
Speaker 1: that vacation you can't take yet I want to get
Speaker 1: away from it all.
Speaker 2: We offer you escape.
Speaker 1: You are groping your ways slowly through the dark hold
Speaker 1: of a ship at sea, moving carefully step by step,
Speaker 1: searching intently for something you dread to find, because you
Speaker 1: know that this ship carries a cargo of death.
Speaker 3: Escape designed to free you from the four walls of
Speaker 3: today for a half hour of high adventure.
Speaker 1: Tonight, at your request, we bring back one of our
Speaker 1: most popular escape stories. We escaped to a harbor front
Speaker 1: in Venezuela and a grim voyage which started from there,
Speaker 1: As told by Martin Storm and his gripping tale, a
Speaker 1: shipment of mute fate.
Speaker 4: I stopped on the larf at Laguira, looked up the
Speaker 4: gangplank toward the liner chang k standing there quietly at
Speaker 4: a moorings. The day was warm under a bright tropic sun.
Speaker 4: The harbor beyond the ship lay drowsy and silent. But
Speaker 4: all at once, in the midst of those peaceful surroundings,
Speaker 4: a cold chill grip me, and I shivered with sudden dread.
Speaker 4: Dread of the thing I was doing, was about to
Speaker 4: do too much. It happened to turn back. Now I
Speaker 4: had gone too far to stop. I set the box
Speaker 4: down on the edge of the wharf, placed it carefully
Speaker 4: so as to be in plain sight and within gunshot
Speaker 4: of the Captain's bridge. I knew what I was going
Speaker 4: to do, but I couldn't forget that a certain pair
Speaker 4: of beady eyes were watching every move I made. Eyes
Speaker 4: had never blinked and never close, just watched and waited.
Speaker 4: I turned and started up the gang point. Who look
Speaker 4: startled me?
Speaker 5: Sir, Why it's mister Warner.
Speaker 4: Hello, mother Willis that's the best looking stewardess on the
Speaker 4: seventh seats.
Speaker 5: I'm fine, mister Warner. I guess i'd better run longer,
Speaker 5: get on my should.
Speaker 4: Now wait a minute, that's a fine greeting after two months.
Speaker 5: It's just that time so busy.
Speaker 4: I don't believe a word of it. Sailing days tomorrow.
Speaker 4: You're simply avoiding me. That's oh no, really, I'm not.
Speaker 4: And on the trip down from New York you said
Speaker 4: I was your favorite passenger, but.
Speaker 2: I'm only here.
Speaker 4: What's that you're carrying your apron what's nothing? Just just
Speaker 4: supplies supplies. Let's have a look. No, please, it's a cat.
Speaker 5: It's Claire and mister Warner. Mister Bowman said I had
Speaker 5: to leave her Ashuran.
Speaker 2: I just couldn't.
Speaker 4: It was mister Bowman, the new second mate.
Speaker 5: Claire has been aboard with me for two years, and
Speaker 5: I just can't live here in a foreign country, especially
Speaker 5: with her condition so delicate.
Speaker 4: Not yes, I said, well, I hope you get away
Speaker 4: with it.
Speaker 5: You won't tell any one, not.
Speaker 4: A soul, as a matter of fact, that things don't
Speaker 4: work out right. We may both end up smuggling.
Speaker 1: I was happy to have you a board on the
Speaker 1: trip down two months ago, Christopher, and I'm very glad
Speaker 1: you're coming along with us on the run back to
Speaker 1: New York.
Speaker 4: Thanks Captain Wood there is that's one thing though. I'm
Speaker 4: having a little trouble with the customs men here and
Speaker 4: I want.
Speaker 1: I can't do it, Christopher. I just came to your
Speaker 1: father this morning and told him might have done it
Speaker 1: for if I possibly could he sent a request from
Speaker 1: New York.
Speaker 4: You know, yeah, I thought he would. I wired him
Speaker 4: from upriver last week.
Speaker 1: I hated to refuse, but it's absolutely out.
Speaker 2: Of the question.
Speaker 4: Captain what I'm afraid I don't follow you.
Speaker 1: Responsibility to the passengers, and we have women and children
Speaker 1: aboard on a liner. The safety of the passengers comes
Speaker 1: ahead of anything else.
Speaker 4: But with proper recaution, might happen what. I don't know what,
Speaker 4: but something might carried worse things.
Speaker 1: There isn't anything worse. Any skipper A photo bare me out, No, Christopher,
Speaker 1: I simply can't take the chance. And that's final.
Speaker 4: Final. It wasn't final if I could do anything about it.
Speaker 4: I hadn't come down here to spend two months in
Speaker 4: that stinking backcountry and then be stopped on the edge
Speaker 4: of the wharf two months of it. He rained insight,
Speaker 4: it's malaria. I gone clear and pass. They had waters
Speaker 4: of the Orinoco, traveled through country. Wherever you step along
Speaker 4: the jungle trail might be the last one. Santees, better
Speaker 4: start looking for a place to camp. Be dark in
Speaker 4: a little while.
Speaker 2: Very soon we camp on rocks by water. This very
Speaker 2: bad country, this very bad country.
Speaker 4: We've been saying it for ten days now. Very bad country.
Speaker 2: Is very bad cont skipping.
Speaker 4: For all of luck we've had so far, might as
Speaker 4: well be central.
Speaker 2: Partners, I understand.
Speaker 4: Never mind what's the matter now, Dante, what's wrong?
Speaker 2: Puss?
Speaker 4: Bushmaster, the deadliest snake in the world. Bushmaster Latin name
Speaker 4: was like cases mutan mute faith. It lay there in
Speaker 4: the center of the path, a ten foot length of
Speaker 4: silent death, coiled loosely in an ambulent lope, ready to
Speaker 4: strike violently at the least movement. Here was the one
Speaker 4: snake that would go after any animal that walked, or
Speaker 4: any man that lay there and watched us, not moving,
Speaker 4: not afraid, ready for anything. The splotch of its color
Speaker 4: stood out like some horrible, gaudy floor mat, lying there
Speaker 4: on the brown background of the jungle, waiting for someone
Speaker 4: to step on it. Here was what I'd come two
Speaker 4: thousand miles for a bushmaster. The natives captured the snake,
Speaker 4: and Sanchez brought it to me in a rubber bag.
Speaker 4: He was shaking so hard I thought for a moment
Speaker 4: the thing had struck him.
Speaker 6: One thing, you make sure, Senor Wonder not turn him
Speaker 6: loose in Venezuela, because he know the one who catch him, and.
Speaker 2: He know where I live.
Speaker 4: Sanchez, I'll keep an eye on him.
Speaker 6: He also know you pay me to catch him. All
Speaker 6: the time he watch and wait, you'll no forget toch
Speaker 6: and your warner because he no forget not ever.
Speaker 4: We'll have to go and through all that trouble and
Speaker 4: danger and laying out fifteen hundred bucks. I wasn't gonna
Speaker 4: let a pigheaded ship captains stop me at the last minute,
Speaker 4: at least not as long as the cables was still
Speaker 4: in operation between Laguire and New York. I morning, Captain,
Speaker 4: what the boy at the hotel said? You wanted to
Speaker 4: see me?
Speaker 1: That's right, Christophers, Thanks Jims.
Speaker 4: You went willing matters time. The way we lifted me yesterday.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry to go your head, Captain Wood, but I
Speaker 4: had to Yaaam sent me a long way to get
Speaker 4: that snake. I'm not going to be stopped by red tape.
Speaker 4: This will be the only live bush Master I ever
Speaker 4: brought to the United States.
Speaker 1: Yes, if I had my way order the orders got
Speaker 1: a cave up from the head office this morning. All right, Christophers,
Speaker 1: of course we talk about precaution.
Speaker 4: I'll hand it any way.
Speaker 2: You say it's got to.
Speaker 1: Have a stronger box that creates too flimsy.
Speaker 4: Well, it's stronger than it looks. A wire screen on top.
Speaker 4: It hold a wildcat. But anyway, I bought a heavy
Speaker 4: sea chatt this morning. We'll put the crate inside.
Speaker 1: Of its right got lock on it a heavy pad lot.
Speaker 4: It's fixed so the lid can be propped open a
Speaker 4: crack without unlocking it.
Speaker 1: Snake's got the have air in dirty weather, that lid
Speaker 1: has to stay shut out. I will take no chances.
Speaker 4: Fair enough, We'll.
Speaker 1: Keep the thing in my inside cabin where I sleep.
Speaker 1: You can't have it in the baggage room, and nobody
Speaker 1: on board is to know about it.
Speaker 4: If you say, captain, we won't have any trouble. After all,
Speaker 4: it's only an animal. It doesn't have any magical powers.
Speaker 1: I saw a bushmaster in the zoo at Caracas once.
Speaker 1: They had it in a glass cage with double walls.
Speaker 1: They were moved, just lay there and looked at you
Speaker 1: as long as you were inside, enough to give a
Speaker 1: man the creeps.
Speaker 4: You know that a bushmaster at the Karrakas zoo.
Speaker 2: They don't know.
Speaker 1: They found the glass broken one morning and the snake gone.
Speaker 1: The night watchmen dead. They never learned exactly what happened.
Speaker 4: Well, I watched them. Must have broken the glass by
Speaker 4: accident somewhere the.
Speaker 1: Way they figured it. The glass was broken from the inside.
Speaker 1: We sailed in four hours.
Speaker 4: End of the Caribbean, with perfect weather and the sea
Speaker 4: as smooth as an.
Speaker 1: In little lake.
Speaker 4: The barometer dropped a little on the third day, but
Speaker 4: cleared up overnight, left nothing worse than a heavy swell.
Speaker 4: But in spite of the calm season pleasant weather, I
Speaker 4: found myself feeling more and more often a anomenous foreboding.
Speaker 4: I was developing an almost unnatural fear of that snake.
Speaker 4: Stay clear. The pasage has pretty much got the habit
Speaker 4: of dropping into Captain Wood's quarters several times a day,
Speaker 4: kept the heavy box underneath his berth, approached it quietly
Speaker 4: and shine my flashlight through the open crack. Once could
Speaker 4: I catch at twelve foot devil asleep or even excited.
Speaker 4: You'd be lying there, half coiled, his head raised a little,
Speaker 4: staring out of those beady black eyes, waiting still be
Speaker 4: like that when I turned away to leave. Maybe that's
Speaker 4: what bothered me, That horrible and constant, watchful waiting the
Speaker 4: name of Heaven was he waiting for? Well, I know there,
Speaker 4: mister Woner, Oh how are you? Mother?
Speaker 5: Willis my but you and the Captain spend an awful
Speaker 5: lot of time around this cabin. I'm beginning to think
Speaker 5: that two of you must have some guilty your secret.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, nothing like that. Mother Willis. I
Speaker 4: don't know about Captain would, but I certainly don't have
Speaker 4: any guilty secret. Well, she's running quite a swell out there,
Speaker 4: mister Bowman.
Speaker 7: It's a little heavy, all right. Mister Warner. As the
Speaker 7: storm passed through to the west of us yesterday when
Speaker 7: the glass dropped.
Speaker 4: You think it missed us then? Huh yeah, that's what
Speaker 4: the mate figures. You're stirred up some water though, This
Speaker 4: will put half the passengers and have bunks, o Kate.
Speaker 4: Mother willis a position. Hey, look at the size of
Speaker 4: that way.
Speaker 7: Huh great, gee, hospat we're goin to take it on
Speaker 7: the port pile.
Speaker 4: Hang on, that was a freak if there ever was one.
Speaker 4: Not another way about size and sight.
Speaker 7: Oh you see him like that sometimes even in a
Speaker 7: calm sea. I ain't gonna get below, mister Winner. That
Speaker 7: water probably did some real damage in the officers deck.
Speaker 4: Yes, what did you say?
Speaker 7: A real companion way was open on the port side
Speaker 7: the bridge. Heavens must have taken a pretty bad smashing
Speaker 7: up the right below the something.
Speaker 4: Wrong, mister No, No, nothink at all, mister Bauman, at
Speaker 4: least I hope not. I didn't stop to find Captain Wood.
Speaker 4: Of course, I know it was only one chance in
Speaker 4: a thousand, but the chances against that freak wave were
Speaker 4: one in a thousand and two. I stumbled down the
Speaker 4: companion way and along the passage of the captain's cabin.
Speaker 5: Oh, come in, mister Warner.
Speaker 4: Mother willis mi.
Speaker 5: Miss cabin and mess trying to get some of these things.
Speaker 7: Out to dry.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I just wanted to where's that box that
Speaker 4: was under the captain's bunk?
Speaker 5: Oh? That I just threw it out on the deck.
Speaker 5: What the desk over there slid into it?
Speaker 4: It was all smash, But the small box inside of it?
Speaker 4: What happened to it?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 5: They were both splintered, mister Woner, broke wide open. Mister Warner,
Speaker 5: your fight as a sheep.
Speaker 4: Mother willis go find Captain Wood to come down here immediately,
Speaker 4: hopes mister Wilnert. I'll they'll tell him right away.
Speaker 5: I can finish up here right.
Speaker 4: Pulled open the top draw of the bureau inside took
Speaker 4: out the Captain's flashlight and loaded pistol. Whither Willis had
Speaker 4: left a mop standing by the door. I put my
Speaker 4: foot on the head of it and snapped off the handle.
Speaker 4: Every move I made turned into slow motion. I could
Speaker 4: hear my own heart beating slowly. I started to search
Speaker 4: the cabin. Sudden heaps of clothing and furnishings were scattered
Speaker 4: around on the wet black floor. I punched it them
Speaker 4: one at a time, holding the gun cocked flashlight, pointing
Speaker 4: along the stick nothing. I worked around the room, throwing
Speaker 4: the light into the dark corners back of the desk,
Speaker 4: under the bunk. Wherever I turned, I could feel those cold,
Speaker 4: unblinking eyes at my back, watching, waiting. Using the stick,
Speaker 4: I pushed open the closet door and threw the light inside. Carefully,
Speaker 4: I poked at the boxes.
Speaker 2: And junk on the floor.
Speaker 4: Snake was not in the closet. Inch by inch, I
Speaker 4: covered the entire cabin, and only then a horrible realization
Speaker 4: began to dawn on me. Captain Wood will just told me,
Speaker 4: held Christopher, it's happened. That's right, it's happened.
Speaker 1: As you found the gun. We better start searching the cabin.
Speaker 4: Here, Captain Wood, I just finished searching.
Speaker 1: The women, kids, and that thing loose on board a
Speaker 1: thousand places for it to hide. Heaven help us, Christopher.
Speaker 1: I know you're starting to anybody now, gentlemen. I didn't
Speaker 1: call you in here the pass judgment. The thing's done,
Speaker 1: and that's that. What we ever got to do is
Speaker 1: to make up our minds how we're going to handle it.
Speaker 7: It to be easier if we didn't have to tell
Speaker 7: the passengers and crew. I've seen panics on board liners before.
Speaker 1: Yes, I agree with you, mister Bowman, but I don't
Speaker 1: quite see how we can avoid it. They've got a
Speaker 1: right to know as long as that snakes lose everybody
Speaker 1: on board in the same day, and they all ought
Speaker 1: to know about Captain Wood.
Speaker 4: That thing is twelve feet long. It can't simply crawl
Speaker 4: into a crack. Why don't we make a quick search
Speaker 4: of the whole ship before we spread any alarm.
Speaker 1: I've thought of that, Christopher.
Speaker 7: As far as I can see, the only place it
Speaker 7: couldn't be is in the boilers or on top of
Speaker 7: the galley stove.
Speaker 2: It might have crawled overboard.
Speaker 1: If you can't count on that, you've got to assume
Speaker 1: it's on the ship. Somewhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that could be anywhere now, coil a rope
Speaker 2: on a dick chair.
Speaker 1: Iro bucket, or in a pile of clothes.
Speaker 7: Yes, or under some woman's birth or a baby's crib.
Speaker 4: You've already said it, wish, master, could be anywhere. You've
Speaker 4: got to do something. We've got to do it fast,
Speaker 4: all right.
Speaker 1: I think the best idea is to follow mister warner
Speaker 1: suggestion to make a quick search first. You agree to that, right,
Speaker 1: And if we don't find it, we'll have to warn
Speaker 1: the passengers.
Speaker 4: We've got to find Alone in the dimp baggage room,
Speaker 4: I went through the same movements as I had earlier
Speaker 4: in the captain's cabin. Gun in one hand, flashlight in
Speaker 4: the other, poking into every dark corner, behind every trunk
Speaker 4: and box. Since the baggage room was empty, keep the
Speaker 4: gun cocked and ready. The rest of those poor devils
Speaker 4: were having to do the same thing, fare handed all
Speaker 4: over the ship.
Speaker 5: The search one here, now, Stuart, what on earth are
Speaker 5: you doing rummaging through my cabin?
Speaker 7: Just checking up man?
Speaker 5: Well, I'm quite sure there's nothing in here.
Speaker 4: That has to be checked.
Speaker 7: Sorry, man, Captain's orders will only take a few minutes.
Speaker 4: But I never heard of such things. A passenger simply
Speaker 4: doesn't have any privacy at all.
Speaker 7: I've traveled on a lot of different lines. Sorry, Sarah,
Speaker 7: I wonder if you mind moving over to the other rail.
Speaker 7: I'd like to look through these luckers.
Speaker 2: Sure, go ahead, that's the matter.
Speaker 1: You lost something?
Speaker 7: No, No, just looking things over.
Speaker 1: There's nothing in there but life preservers.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: You must be getting ready to sink the boat.
Speaker 8: Kind of collect the insurance, eh, gonna send us hold
Speaker 8: on the matter, mah.
Speaker 4: But not one of us could find a deadly shape
Speaker 4: coiled in some dark corner, are outstretched along a window seat.
Speaker 4: Not one of us caught a glimpse of that horrid
Speaker 4: head with its beady, black, watchful eyes, The thing like
Speaker 4: waiting out there somewhere along the decks, shaded in the
Speaker 4: gathering dusk, but where we didn't know. It's nearly dark
Speaker 4: when we met together again in the chart room.
Speaker 1: There's no other way around it. We've risked all the
Speaker 1: time we can. We've got to warn the passengers.
Speaker 2: Oh we do it, captain and call them all together
Speaker 2: in the lounge.
Speaker 1: No anything like that. We'd be asking for a panic.
Speaker 7: We'll get one, whether we ask for it or not.
Speaker 1: And we pick a few men and go through the
Speaker 1: cabin decks and them individually inside the canbins. Watch for
Speaker 1: any that act like they might cause trouble. We keep
Speaker 1: an eye on them, and they'll crew the same way.
Speaker 1: As soon as you're finished, arm all the deck officers
Speaker 1: and start searching again. Our only chance of preventing a
Speaker 1: riot is to find that damnable snake.
Speaker 4: The slow nightmare that followed grew worse by the hour.
Speaker 4: None of us slept, All the ship's officers not on
Speaker 4: duty kept on with that endless search. Passengers locked themselves
Speaker 4: in their cabins or huddled together in the lounges, knowing
Speaker 4: all the time at no spot on board could be
Speaker 4: called safe. Fear was a heavy fog in the lungs
Speaker 4: of all of us, and every light on the vessel
Speaker 4: burned throughout the night. Morning came brought no relief. Terror
Speaker 4: and tension mounted by the hour.
Speaker 5: Then missus cream stopped getting yourself all woked up and
Speaker 5: go back to your cabin. The horrid things probably crawled
Speaker 5: over the board that you're paid to say that you
Speaker 5: don't know, nobody know nigh everything's going to.
Speaker 4: Be all right.
Speaker 7: Only we can do something, If all of us could,
Speaker 7: God only get off, She conumicated.
Speaker 4: We've got to we've got to get off the ship.
Speaker 7: We've got to get away.
Speaker 2: Shift ways, mister boler, she's jump.
Speaker 1: Nice work, mister woman. Get it down to a cabin.
Speaker 1: Whatever you do, don't turn her loose.
Speaker 4: You never know what it might strike it.
Speaker 7: You can't put on a colder, move a chair without
Speaker 7: risking your life. Something's gotta be done.
Speaker 8: It might be right here in this lone all right,
Speaker 8: better quiet down and take it easy.
Speaker 4: Take it easy.
Speaker 7: You're a great officer. Why don't you do something about it?
Speaker 2: That thing might be crawling around here, right on our
Speaker 2: feet somewhere.
Speaker 5: I shut up.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to start up.
Speaker 2: I got to write, to talk.
Speaker 7: I don't want to die.
Speaker 5: Nobody's gonna tell me what.
Speaker 4: The second night passed, morning came around again, a gray
Speaker 4: and rainy day that drag passed, and then night came
Speaker 4: down again. Third night of the terror. Again, every light burned,
Speaker 4: the whole ship seed in the throes of incipient panic,
Speaker 4: faced by a horror they'd never met on the sea before.
Speaker 4: Crew and offices alike were on the burge of revolt,
Speaker 4: passenger sat huddled in the trance like steel ground, ready
Speaker 4: to scream at the slightest unknown song, seven belts. I
Speaker 4: made my way forward to the chart room. Found Captain
Speaker 4: Wood bed over a desk.
Speaker 1: Oh, hello, Christopher, come on in.
Speaker 4: It's got to be somewhere, Captain Wood, it's got to be.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: You can search the ship for six months and never
Speaker 1: touch all the places aboard. We can only hold out
Speaker 1: for two more days. We're going to be in what's
Speaker 1: the home office? Say the least wireless from him? Keep
Speaker 1: quiet and keep coming. What else can we do? How
Speaker 1: is it on the decks?
Speaker 4: Pretty bad? Anything could happen.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's why I took the guns away from the men.
Speaker 1: One pistol shot and we'd never riot on our hand holes.
Speaker 4: Thanks my fault, Captain would That's what I can take
Speaker 4: it easy. There was only some way I could pay
Speaker 4: for it myself alone.
Speaker 2: I know how you.
Speaker 1: Feel, but it's no more your fault than mine or
Speaker 1: the man who asked you to bring that snake back alive.
Speaker 2: Nobody planned this. You better try to get a little
Speaker 2: sleep sleeve.
Speaker 1: A bowman made some coffee down in the Stewart's gallery
Speaker 1: a while ago. Why don't you go on down and
Speaker 1: get yourself a cup, then rest for a couple of hours.
Speaker 2: Rest.
Speaker 4: I can't rest, Christopher.
Speaker 1: It's not going to help anything of your stumbles through
Speaker 1: a hatch half asleep and break your neck, is it?
Speaker 1: You go and get some coffee. One way or another.
Speaker 1: We've got to hold out for two more days.
Speaker 4: Light was on the Stewart's gally. Coffee pot was standing
Speaker 4: on the stove, still warm, so I didn't.
Speaker 2: Bother to heater it.
Speaker 4: Poured out a cup, carried it over and set it
Speaker 4: on the porcelain tabletop the center of the room. Started
Speaker 4: to light A cigarette. Door of the pan cuvered beneath
Speaker 4: the sink was standing slightly ajar, having a glance to it.
Speaker 4: I'd dropped the cigarette, moved slowly backwards. I'd found the Bushmaster.
Speaker 4: As I moved, the snake slid out of the cupboard
Speaker 4: in a single sinuous glide, drove back into a loose
Speaker 4: coil on the galley floor, never taking his eyes off me.
Speaker 4: I moved slowly back, waiting any moment for that deadly
Speaker 4: slithering strike. How would he known it was me? He'd
Speaker 4: stayed quiet when Bowman was here?
Speaker 7: How would he picked?
Speaker 4: The first time in five days that I was without
Speaker 4: a gun. My hands touched the bulkhet behind me, and
Speaker 4: I stopped. Oh he got I realized, to tell her
Speaker 4: what I'd done. The cold button and the door were
Speaker 4: on the far side of the room.
Speaker 7: I'd backed into a dead end.
Speaker 4: I stared at the snake in fascination, expecting any moment
Speaker 4: the ri being slash of those poisoned fangs. Horrid coils
Speaker 4: tightened a little and was still again, ten million years
Speaker 4: of evolution to produce this moment. Homo sapiens versus la
Speaker 4: cases muta, a man against mute fate and all the
Speaker 4: odds were on fight.
Speaker 2: I know then that I was.
Speaker 6: Going to die.
Speaker 4: I feel a sweat run down between the painted walls
Speaker 4: and the palms of my hands pressing against it. My
Speaker 4: skin crawled and twitched. The pit of my stomach was
Speaker 4: as cold as ice. There's no sound but the rush
Speaker 4: of blood in my ears. The snake shifted again, drawing
Speaker 4: into a tighter coil, always tighter. Oh I didn't the
Speaker 4: devil get it over with then? Just for instant, his
Speaker 4: head veered away, Something moved over by the stove. I
Speaker 4: didn't dare turn to look at it. Slowly it moved
Speaker 4: out into my line of vision. It was a cat,
Speaker 4: that scrawny cat, Clara, that mother Willis had sneaked a
Speaker 4: pot laguire. His back was arched and every hair stood
Speaker 4: on him. It moved stiff legged, now walking in a
Speaker 4: half circle around the snake. The bush master moved slowly
Speaker 4: and kept watching the cat. He tightened, he was going
Speaker 4: to strike. At any second. He struck and mist The
Speaker 4: cat was barely out of reach, but now she was
Speaker 4: walking back and forth again. She was asking to die.
Speaker 4: Missed again by a fraction of an inch. He was
Speaker 4: striking now without even going to a full coil. Get
Speaker 4: missed it again and again, always missing by the barest marching.
Speaker 4: Each time, the cat danced barely out of reach, and
Speaker 4: each time she countered with one precise spot of a
Speaker 4: dainty paw, bracing her skinny frame on free, stiff legs.
Speaker 4: And then suddenly I realized what she was doing. The
Speaker 4: bushmaster was tired, and one strike was just an instant slow.
Speaker 4: But in that split second, sharp claws raked across the
Speaker 4: evil head and ripped out both the lidless eyes. The
Speaker 4: cat had deliberately blinded the snake. He didn't bottle the
Speaker 4: coil up, but slid after her and a fury strike
Speaker 4: it wildly and rapidly, always missing, and every strike was
Speaker 4: a little slower than the last one, until finally business
Speaker 4: snake's next stretched out at the end of a strike,
Speaker 4: the cat made one leap and sank a ragious sharp
Speaker 4: teeth just back of the ugly head, sank until they
Speaker 4: chrished bone tooth and claws. She clung as the monstrous
Speaker 4: light flailed and left on the floor, striving to get
Speaker 4: those hideous coils around her, trying to break her hole
Speaker 4: to shake off the claw in certain paralyzing death that
Speaker 4: gradually crept over him minute last, still his struggles forever,
Speaker 4: I took a deep breath. The first ten minutes the
Speaker 4: cat lay on her side on the floor, Paddy resting
Speaker 4: from the fight just over. She had a right to rest,
Speaker 4: that Maine. She brave, beautiful alley cat. It just saved
Speaker 4: my life and maybe others as well. But as I
Speaker 4: turned toward the stove, I suddenly became very humble, and
Speaker 4: I knew all at once what a small thing a
Speaker 4: human being really is. I and others aboard were still
Speaker 4: alive only by the merest accident. There were three reasons
Speaker 4: why that cat had fought and killed the world's deadliest snake,
Speaker 4: And those three reasons came tottering out from under the
Speaker 4: stove on shaky little legs, three kittens with their eyes
Speaker 4: bright with one day and their tails stiff as pokers.
Speaker 4: Up on the decks. Hundreds of passengers were waiting for
Speaker 4: the new It was that the days and nights of
Speaker 4: Tara were ended. They could wait a little longer. I
Speaker 4: pulled open the doors of the cabinet, found a can
Speaker 4: of milk, and I dropped down on my knees on
Speaker 4: the floor of the galley.
Speaker 3: Escape is produced and directed by Norman McDonald and Tonight
Speaker 3: Brought You a shipment of Mute Fate by Martin Storm,
Speaker 3: adapted for radio by Les Crutchfield, featuring Harry Bartel as
Speaker 3: Chris Warner, Barry Kroger as Captain Wood, and Peggy Weber
Speaker 3: as Mother Willis, with Don diamond, Sarah Selby and Frank Gerstaal.
Speaker 3: Special effects by David Light. The musical score was conducted
Speaker 3: by Wilbur Hatch.
Speaker 1: Next Week, you are hanging by your fingertips on the
Speaker 1: sheer face of an ice cliff, suspended two thousand feet above.
Speaker 1: Instant death, with your strength running out and with no
Speaker 1: chance for.
Speaker 9: Escape next week, Escape with C. E.
Speaker 3: Montague's exciting story action. Good night, then until the same
Speaker 3: time next week when CBS again offers you escape. This
Speaker 3: is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.