He essayed to shout, hoping to make his friends hear and bring them to his rescue, but no answer came to his calls; no human being appeared in sight. And all the time man and snake lay there on the sunny veldt, the reptile's mighty coils growing always a little tighter as it endeavoured to lessen its victim's struggles. [Illustration: "MR. COCKLIN GRIPPED THE SNAKE BY THE THROAT, STRIVING WILDLY TO FREE HIMSELF."] Presently, finding the pressure upon his body becoming unendurable, Mr. Cocklin gripped the snake by the throat, striving wildly to free himself. Over and over, this way and that, the pair rolled, the python seeking all the time to free its hideous head or tighten its coils sufficiently to put an end to Cocklin's struggles. For, perhaps, ten to fifteen minutes--minutes that seemed like hours of torture--this unequal, terrifying fight went on, and still neither had gained any decided advantage; the man still lived, though fast in the coils of the snake, which in turn, though it held its captive securely, was unable to crush him outright or to release his hold upon its throat, which prevented it throwing a coil round his neck and strangling him. Now, a python is so constructed that it can exert its crushing powers to the full only when it is able to get a leverage upon some fixed object--say, by taking a turn with its tail round a tree. Presently--apparently realizing that something of this kind was required to enable it to finish off its prisoner--the great snake altered its tactics and commenced to drag Mr. Cocklin over the ground towards a large hard-wood tree which stood some distance away. The man saw and understood--the battle was about to enter on its last and most dreadful phase! Desperately he fought against the snake, trying to get at his knife, which was in his right-hand coat-pocket, with the idea of cutting the creature's throat; but, to his horror, he found that the reptile's coils passed over the place where the weapon lay. "Finding I could not get my knife," said Mr. Cocklin, in a letter which he wrote to the _Cape Times_ subsequently, "and thinking that my chances of surviving were not very bright, I determined I would not die alone. I saw that the barrel of my gun projected just about an inch through between my arm and body, where the arm was pinned to the side, and luckily I managed to reach the trigger with my left hand. Gripping the python firmly by the throat, and holding its head well away, I pulled the trigger, and the bullet, fortunately for me, caught the snake through the back. It then relaxed its grip, and I got rid of its coils as fast as I could.