waiting for the sensation to pass off before closing my
eyes and enjoying another pleasant, restful, strength-giving sleep.

I had just arrived at this pitch of reasoning, and I was considering how
long it would be before the sensation passed away, when, as I stared
with half-closed eyes at the lamp, I fancied that I saw something gleam
only a short distance before me; and this exciting my curiosity, I
looked again, felt startled, my heart began to beat painfully, and a
cold chill ran through me, as I realised the horrible fact that,
consequent upon my bed being made up on the ground, instead of upon the
native bedstead known as a charpoy, a serpent had crept in beneath the
side of the tent--the rustle I had heard--and, attracted by the warmth,
coiled itself upon my chest, where it now lay with its cool head upon my
neck.

I was awake now fully, and, above all, to the terror of my situation.
What shall I do? I asked myself, as the icy feeling of horror
increased. I dared not move or attempt to call, for the reptile's head
was close to my chin, and the slightest stir might cause it to bite; for
at the first alarm I felt certain that it must be one of the poisonous
cobras which infested the land.

As I lay there, I could feel the perspiration streaming out of my pores,
and the weight upon my chest increasing rapidly, till I began to fancy
that if I were not soon relieved I should be suffocated.

How long I lay like this I cannot say; but it felt to me almost an
eternity, and the more painful from the fact that there was help close
at hand, so near that a call would bring in one if not more of the
servants instantly.

One moment my lips parted ready to utter a cry; but that cry, in spite
of several attempts, was not uttered. For the idea of being bitten, of
receiving the two sharp fangs of the monster in my flesh, was so
horrible that, cowardly or no, I could not call. I had heard too much
of the results of a cobra bite, and the thought of the insidious poison
making its way rapidly through the veins, and ending one's life by
arresting the pulsations of the heart in a few minutes, or at most
hours, was too terrible for me to run any risk.

I think I must have nearly fainted away, for I was very weak; but I
never quite lost my senses, but lay looking with misty eyes across the
gleaming scaly skin there upon my heart, and feeling from time to time a
peculiar movement, as if one coil were passing over another.

Th