This apparatus is endowed with singular
electrical properties, and is apt to produce very formidable results.
Some of these gymnotuses are about the length of a common snake,
others are about ten feet long, while others, which, however, are
rare, even reach fifteen or twenty feet, and are from eight to ten
inches in diameter.
Gymnotuses are plentiful enough both in the Amazon and its
tributaries; and it was one of these living coils, about ten feet
long, which, after uncurving itself like a bow, again attacked the
diver.
Benito knew what he had to fear from this formidable animal. His
clothes were powerless to protect him. The discharges of the
gymnotus, at first somewhat weak, become more and more violent, and
there would come a time when, exhausted by the shocks, he would be
rendered powerless.
Benito, unable to resist the blows, half-dropped upon the sand. His
limbs were becoming paralyzed little by little under the electric
influences of the gymnotus, which lightly touched his body as it
wrapped him in its folds. His arms even he could not lift, and soon
his spear escaped him, and his hand had not strength enough left to
pull the cord and give the signal.
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