l. It was as though it were piled in
a mass instead of being evenly distributed.

Then to Joe's consternation _the shadow moved_, reached the edge of
moonlight, rose higher and higher with a sickening swaying motion. From a
hideous head two sparks of fire glowed balefully and Joe knew that he was
in the presence of a giant cobra!

CHAPTER XXVI

IN THE SHADOW OF THE PYRAMIDS

Joe's blood chilled with horror and his heart seemed for a moment to stop
beating.

He did not dare to move and scarcely to breathe. He might have been a
statue, so rigid was his attitude. He knew that the least movement would
provoke an attack on the part of the deadly reptile.

On the other hand, if he kept perfectly quiet, there was the chance of the
snake gliding away through the window, which had evidently been its means
of entering the room.

Whether the serpent saw him or not, Joe could not tell. The head swayed
for a minute or two, while the glowing eyes seemed to take in every corner
of the room. Then the coils unwound and with a slithering sound the snake
began to crawl across the floor.

But instead of seeking the window it was gliding towards the bed!

If he had had a revolver Joe would have had a chance, for at such close
range he could scarcely have missed. Even a knife to hurl, though only a
forlorn hope, might have pinned the snake to the floor. But he was utterly
without a weapon of any kind.

Suddenly he remembered the cane that his chum had leaned against the
footboard a few hours earlier.

He reached down stealthily and his hand closed upon it.

He did not dare to wake Jim for fear that the latter might leap from the
bed and perhaps land squarely on the gliding death that was somewhere in
the room. He had lost sight of it, but he could still hear the dragging
body and it seemed to be now under the bed. At any instant that awful head
might rise on either side prepared to strike.

Gripping the cane until his fingers seemed to dig into it, Joe had a
moment of awful suspense.

The gliding sound had ceased. Then from the side nearest Jim a hideous
head uprose within a foot of the sleeping man's face.

Like a flash the tough cane hissed through the air with all Joe's muscle
back of it. It caught the reptile full in the neck and sent it half way
across the room where it lay writhing.

In an instant Joe had leaped to the floor, raining blows upon the head
and floundering coils, until at last the reptile straig