Professor Jonkins Cannibal Plant | Page 3

I cut off all but one blossom, so that the strength of the plant would nourish that alone. Then I made out a bill of fare. I began feeding it on chopped beef. The plant took to it like a puppy. It seemed to beg for more. From chopped meat I went to small pieces, cut up. I could fairly see the blossom increase in size. From that I went to choice mutton chops, and, after a week of them, with the plant becoming more gigantic all the while, I increased its meals to a porterhouse steak a day. And now?"
The professor paused to contemplate his botanical work.
"Well, now?" questioned Adams.
"Now," went on the professor proudly, "my pitcher plant takes three big beefsteaks every day?one for breakfast, one for dinner, and one for supper. And see the result."
Adams gazed at the immense plant. From a growth about as big as an Easter lily it had increased until the top was near the roof of the greenhouse, twenty-five feet above. About fifteen feet up, or ten feet from the top, there branched out a great flower, about eight feet long and three feet across the bell-shaped mouth, which except for the cap or cover, was not unlike the opening of an immense morning glory. The flower was heavy, and the stalk on which it grew was not strong enough to support it upright. So a rude scaffolding had been constructed of wood and boards, and on a frame the flower was held upright.
In order to see it to better advantage, and also that he might feed it, the professor had a ladder by which he could ascend to a small platform in front of the bell-shaped mouth of the blossom.
"It is time to give my pet its meal," he announced, as if he were speaking of some favorite horse. "Want to come up and watch it eat?"
"No, thank you," responded Adams. "It's too uncanny." The professor took a large steak, one of the three which the butcher boy had left that day. Holding it in his hand, he climbed up the ladder and was soon on the platform in front of the plant.
Adams watched him curiously. The professor leaned over to toss the steak into the yawning mouth of the flower.
Suddenly Adams saw him totter, throw his arms wildly in the air, and then, as if drawn by some overpowering force, he fell forward, lost his balance, and toppled into the maw of the pitcher plant!
There was a jar to the stalk and blossom as the professor fell within. He went head first into the tube, or eating apparatus of the strange plant, his legs sticking out for an instant, kicking wildly. Then he disappeared entirely.
Adams didn't know whether to laugh or be alarmed. He mounted the ladder, and stood in amazement before the result of the professor's work as he looked down into the depth of the gigantic flower, increased a hundred times in size.
He was aware of a strange, sickish-sweet odor that seemed to steal over his senses. It was lulling him to sleep, and he fought against it. Then he looked down and saw that the huge hairs or filaments with which the tube was lined were in violent motion.
He could just discern the professor's feet about three feet below the rim of the flower. They were kicking, but with a force growing less every second. The filaments seemed to be winding about the professor's legs, holding him in a deadly embrace.
Then the top cover, or flap of the plant, closed down suddenly. The professor was a prisoner inside.
The plant had turned cannibal and eaten the man who had grown it! For an instant, fear deprived Adams of reason. He did not know what to do. Then the awful plight of his friend brought back his senses.
"Professor!" he shouted. "Are you alive? Can you hear me?"
"Yes," came back in faint and muffled tones. "This beast has me, all right."
Then followed a series of violent struggles that shook the plant.
"I'll get you out. Where's an ax? I'll chop the cursed plant to pieces!" cried Adams.
"Don't! Don't" came in almost pleading tones from the imprisoned professor.
"Don't what?"
"Don't hurt my pet!"
"Your pet!" snorted Adams angrily. "Nice kind of a pet you have! One that tries to eat you alive! But I've got to do something if I want to save you. Where's the ax?"
"No! No!" begged the professor, his voice becoming more and more muffled. "Use chloroform."
"Use what?"
"Chloroform! You'll find some in the closet."
Then Adams saw what the professor's idea was. The plant could be made insensible, and the imprisoned man released with no harm to the blossom.
He raced down the ladder, ran to a closet where he had seen the professor's stock of drugs and chemicals stowed away on the