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. Men
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 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 mean time
the snake's eyes burned with a more pitiless malevolence than before.
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 thought; "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 said 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 continuous
throbbing of a great drum, with desultory bursts of far music,
inconceivably sweet, like the tones of an æolian 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 thunder-storm. 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 theatre, 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 time he was dazed and
stunned, and lay with closed eyes, his face against the floor. In a few
moments he had recovered, and then knew that this fall, by withdrawing
his eyes, had broken the spell that 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, assured of its triumph, had
determined to practise 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 stains 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
serpentile 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.