ess of the charming of a small bird by one of our
common harmless serpents. Whether a human being could be reached by this
subtile agency, he had been skeptical, notwithstanding the mysterious
relation generally felt to exist between man and this creature, "cursed
above all cattle and above every beast of the field,"--a relation which
some interpret as the fruit of the curse, and others hold to be so
instinctive that this animal has been for that reason adopted as the
natural symbol of evil. There was another solution, however, supplied
him by his professional reading. The curious work of Mr. Braid of
Manchester had made him familiar with the phenomena of a state allied to
that produced by animal magnetism, and called by that writer by the name
of hypnotism. He found, by referring to his note-book, the statement
was, that, by fixing the eyes on a bright object so placed as to produce
a strain upon the eyes and eyelids, and to maintain a steady fixed stare,
there comes on in a few seconds a very singular condition, characterized
by muscular rigidity and inability to move, with a strange exaltation of
most of the senses, and generally a closure of the eyelids,--this
condition being followed by torpor.

Now this statement of Mr. Braid's, well known to the scientific world,
and the truth of which had been confirmed by Mr. Bernard in certain
experiments he had instituted, as it has been by many other
experimenters, went far to explain the strange impressions, of which,
waking or dreaming, he had certainly been the subject. His nervous
system had been in a high state of exaltation at the time. He remembered
how the little noises that made rings of sound in the silence of the
woods, like pebbles dropped in still waters, had reached his inner
consciousness. He remembered that singular sensation in the roots of the
hair, when he came on the traces of the girl's presence, reminding him of
a line in a certain poem which he had read lately with a new and peculiar
interest. He even recalled a curious evidence of exalted sensibility and
irritability, in the twitching of the minute muscles of the internal ear
at every unexpected sound, producing an odd little snap in the middle of
the head, which proved to him that he was getting very nervous.

The next thing was to find out whether it were possible that the venomous
creature's eyes should have served the purpose of Mr. Braid's "bright
object" held very close to the person exp