At the moment I took but scant notice of
the circumstance, for the flickering flames of the fire which was always
kindled upon such occasions played strange pranks with the lights and
shadows, and often imparted a weird effect of movement to stationery and
even inanimate objects; but presently, happening to again glance in that
direction, my eye was once more caught by the same queer wavering
movement. There was something so strange and uncanny about it--for I by
this time knew the ground well enough to be fully aware that there
_ought not_ to be any moving thing there--that I stopped playing and
sprang to my feet so suddenly that my movement appeared to startle Ama,
who uttered a little cry of alarm, or surprise, and made as though she
too would spring to her feet.

At that instant the thing upon which my gaze was fixed, and which looked
like half a fathom of stiff tarred lanyard, darted with lightning
swiftness at the girl and coiled itself about her shapely bare arm,
while a piercing scream rang out from her pallid lips. I of course knew
in an instant what it was--a snake, that very possibly had been
attracted to the spot by the notes of my flute, and, startled by the
sudden cessation of the music and Ama's quick, involuntary movement, had
instantly coiled itself round her arm and struck at it in its blind and
panic-stricken rage. Acting upon the impulse of the moment, and
scarcely knowing what I was about, with a single bound I flung myself
upon the terrified girl and, guided more by instinct than reason, seized
the reptile immediately behind the head in so vice-like a grip that its
jaws at once opened wide, when I tore its hideous coils from the girl's
arm and flung it far from me into the very heart of the blazing fire.
Then, gripping the wounded limb, I turned it toward the light of the
fire, and saw two marks close together upon the inner part of the arm,
just below the elbow, from which, as I gazed, two drops of blood began
to ooze slowly.

Without wasting a moment, I applied my lips to the double wound,
intending to suck the poison from it, even as I had done in my own case;
but another startling scream from the girl caused me to look up, and,
following the direction of her terrified glance, I looked behind me and
beheld the king himself, his eyes ablaze with demoniac fury, in the very
act of raising a spear that he had snatched from the hand of one of his
guards, to drive it through my body. Whether it