Beyond a smart shock of surprise and a shudder of mere loathing,
Mr. Brayton was not greatly affected. His first thought was to
ring the call bell and bring a servant; but, although the bell cord
dangled within easy reach, he made no movement toward it; it had
occurred to his mind that the act might subject him to the
suspicion of fear, which he certainly did not feel. He was more
keenly conscious of the incongruous nature of the situation than
affected by its perils; it was revolting, but absurd.
The reptile was of a species with which Brayton was unfamiliar.
Its length he could only conjecture; the body at the largest
visible part seemed about as thick as his forearm. In what way was
it dangerous, if in any way? Was it venomous? Was it a
constrictor? His knowledge of nature’s danger signals did not
enable him to say; he had never deciphered the code.
If not dangerous, the creature was at least offensive. It was de
trop—“matter out of place”—an impertinence. The gem was unworthy
of the setting. Even the barbarous taste of our time and country,
which had loaded the walls of the room with pictures, the floor
with furniture, and the furniture with bric-a-brac, had not quite
fitted the place for this bit of the savage life of the jungle.
Besides—insupportable thought!—the exhalations of its breath
mingled with the atmosphere which he himself was breathing!
These thoughts shaped themselves with greater or less definition in
Brayton’s mind, and begot action. The process is what we call
consideration and decision. It is thus that we are wise and
unwise. It is thus that the withered leaf in an autumn breeze
shows greater or less intelligence than its fellows, falling upon
the land or upon the lake. The secret of human action is an open
one—something contracts our muscles. Does it matter if we give to
the preparatory molecular changes the name of will?
Brayton rose to his feet and prepared to back softly away from the
snake, without disturbing it, if possible, and through the door.
People retire so from the presence of the great, for greatness is
power, and power is a menace. He knew that he could walk backward
without obstruction, and find the door without error. Should the
monster follow, the taste which had plastered the walls with
paintings had consistently supplied a rack of murderous Oriental
weapons from which he could snatch one to suit the occasion. In
the meantime the snake’s eyes burned with a more pitiless
malevolence than ever.
Brayton lifted his right foot free of the floor to step backward.
That moment he felt a strong aversion to doing so.
“I am accounted brave,” he murmured; “is bravery, then, no more
than pride? Because there are none to witness the shame shall I
retreat?”
He was steadying himself with his right hand upon the back of a
chair, his foot suspended.
“Nonsense!” he said aloud; “I am not so great a coward as to fear
to seem to myself afraid.”
He lifted the foot a little higher by slightly bending the knee,
and thrust it sharply to the floor—an inch in front of the other!
He could not think how that occurred. A trial with the left foot
had the same result; it was again in advance of the right. The
hand upon the chair back was grasping it; the arm was straight,
reaching somewhat backward. One might have seen that he was
reluctant to lose his hold. The snake’s malignant head was still
thrust forth from the inner coil as before, the neck level. It had
not moved, but its eyes were now electric sparks, radiating an
infinity of luminous needles.
The man had an ashy pallor. Again he took a step forward, and
another, partly dragging the chair, which, when finally released,
fell upon the floor with a crash. The man groaned; the snake made
neither sound nor motion, but its eyes were two dazzling suns. The
reptile itself was wholly concealed by them. They gave off
enlarging rings of rich and vivid colors, which at their greatest
expansion successively vanished like soap bubbles; they seemed to
approach his very face, and anon were an immeasurable distance
away. He heard, somewhere, the continual throbbing of a great
drum, with desultory bursts of far music, inconceivably sweet, like
the tones of an aeolian harp. He knew it for the sunrise melody of
Memnon’s statue, and thought he stood in the Nileside reeds,
hearing, with exalted sense, that immortal anthem through the
silence of the centuries.
The music ceased; rather, it became by insensible degrees the
distant roll of a retreating thunderstorm. A landscape, glittering
with sun and rain, stretched before him, arched with a vivid
rainbow, framing in its giant curve a hundred visible cities. In
the middle distance a vast serpent, wearing a crown, reared its
head out of its voluminous convolutions and looked at him with his
dead mother’s eyes. Suddenly this enchanting landscape seemed to
rise swiftly upward, like the drop scene at a theater, and vanished
in a blank. Something struck him a hard blow upon the face and
breast. He had fallen to the floor; the blood ran from his broken
nose and his bruised lips. For a moment he was dazed and stunned,
and lay with closed eyes, his face against the door. In a few
moments he had recovered, and then realized that his fall, by
withdrawing his eyes, had broken the spell which held him. He felt
that now, by keeping his gaze averted, he would be able to retreat.
But the thought of the serpent within a few feet of his head, yet
unseen—perhaps in the very act of springing upon him and throwing
its coils about his throat—was too horrible. He lifted his head,
stared again into those baleful eyes, and was again in bondage.
The snake had not moved, and appeared somewhat to have lost its
power upon the imagination; the gorgeous illusions of a few moments
before were not repeated. Beneath that flat and brainless brow its
black, beady eyes simply glittered, as at first, with an expression
unspeakably malignant. It was as if the creature, knowing its
triumph assured, had determined to practice no more alluring wiles.
Now ensued a fearful scene. The man, prone upon the floor, within
a yard of his enemy, raised the upper part of his body upon his
elbows, his head thrown back, his legs extended to their full
length. His face was white between its gouts of blood; his eyes
were strained open to their uttermost expansion. There was froth
upon his lips; it dropped off in flakes. Strong convulsions ran
through his body, making almost serpentine undulations. He bent
himself at the waist, shifting his legs from side to side. And
every movement left him a little nearer to the snake. He thrust
his hands forward to brace himself back, yet constantly advanced
upon his elbows.