However, this was no moment for discovering explanations. The situation required instant action. Fortunately, my father's eyes were unbandaged, and for the space of half-an-hour, as it afterwards turned out, he had been able to control his zoological invaders by the mere magnetism of his unwavering glance. One wink, however, was bound to prove fatal, and I saw from the beads of perspiration standing upon the old man's rugged forehead that he must be very near the limit of his power of keeping both eyes open. If a drop of perspiration should happen to roll into one of his eyes there could be, I knew, but one end to the business.
As good luck would have it, the animals had not noticed my entrance. I immediately decided what to do. Addressing my father silently in the deaf and dumb language, of which I am a master, I adjured him to stand firm for another moment or two. I could see from the expression of trustful thankfulness, which stealing over his face, robbed it of every vestige of anxiety, that he had understood my appeal. Then creeping cautiously to a cupboard, I opened it without the slightest noise and found, as I expected, a small coil of rope and a dish of Sallûns, a very tasty kind of native cake. Taking two of these, I tied one to each end of the rope, and threw it deftly so that one cake dropped under the elephant's trunk, while the other, by a stroke of good fortune, fell right into the wide open jaws of the python. The slack, as I intended, alighted gently in a running noose round the tiger's throat. What I anticipated happened. The snake, without troubling itself to discover whence the gift had come, swallowed the Sallûn with which fate had so unexpectedly provided it. In doing so it pulled the dainty at the other end slightly away from the mammoth, who, seeing it moving from him, lost no time in seizing it with his trunk and placing it, as is the wont of these animals, in his mouth. The rope was immediately pulled taut, and began to choke the tiger. His roars were awful but unavailing. Neither elephant nor python would release his hold, and in just seventy-four seconds--I took the time by my stop-watch--the beautiful striped brute was a corpse. This, however, was not all. So hard did the two living beasts struggle in their fearful tug of war that the tiger's head gradually became detached from his body and rolled away to my immoveable father's feet. What would be the result of the contest? The agony of watching was frightful. In my suspense I tried to breathe a prayer, but at the time all I could remember was the fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid, which I repeated twice over without a single mistake. Meanwhile, the two combatants, as the Sallûns went further and further down their throats and into their stomachs, approached closer and closer to one another. At last only a yard, then a foot, then six inches, then an inch separated them, until at last--Great heaven! my hair, even as I write, stands on end with unutterable horror--I saw the python open its enormous jaws to their fullest extent and swallow, yes, literally swallow the trunk, the tusks, and the vast head of the elephant. Slowly the immense pachyderm disappeared. I heard his great bones crack and shiver as inch after inch of him was remorselessly engulfed until, after three minutes and fourteen seconds, all that visibly remained of him was a little tail, which for a space waggled feebly out of the snake's mouth. Then this, too, was still. Another gulp and it was gone, and all was over.