was to
hear his deep rhythmical breathing in the darkness.

"In the daytime we were inseparable. We would go for walks together, and
I have frequently spent hours throwing sticks into the pond at the
bottom of the garden for him to retrieve. It was this practice which
saved his life at the greatest crisis of his career.

"I happened to have strained my leg, and I was sitting in the garden,
dozing, Egbert by my side, when I was awakened by a hoarse bark from my
faithful companion, and, looking down, I perceived him hopping rapidly
towards the pond, pursued by an enormous oojoobwa snake, a reptile not
dangerous to man, being non-poisonous, but a great scourge among the
minor fauna of Assam, owing to its habit of pouncing upon them and
swallowing them alive. This snake is particularly addicted to
bull-frogs, and, judging from the earnest manner in which he was making
for the pond, Egbert was not blind to this trait in its character.

"You may imagine my agony of mind. There was I, helpless. My injured leg
made it impossible for me to pursue the snake and administer one where
it would do most good. And meanwhile the unequal race was already
drawing to its inevitable close. Egbert, splendid as were his other
qualities, was not built for speed. He was dignified rather than mobile.

"What could I do? Nothing beyond throwing my stick in the hope of
stunning the oojoobwa. It was a forlorn hope, but I did it; and it saved
Egbert's life, though not in the way I had intended. The stick missed
the snake and fell immediately in front of Egbert. It was enough. His
grand intellect worked with the speed of lightning. Just as the snake
reached him, he reached the stick; and the next moment there was Egbert,
up to his neck in the reptile's throat, but saved from complete
absorption by the stick, which he was holding firmly in his mouth.

"I have seldom seen any living thing so completely nonplussed as was the
oojoobwa. Snakes have very little reasoning power. They cannot weigh
cause and effect. Otherwise of course the oojoobwa would have nipped
Egbert till he was forced to leave go of the stick. Instead of doing
this, he regarded the stick and Egbert as being constructed all in one
piece, and imagined that he had happened upon a new breed--of
unswallowable frog. He ejected Egbert, and lay thinking it over, while
Egbert, full of pluck, continued his journey to the pond.

"Three times in the next two yards did the snake endeavour to sw