s greater or less
intelligence than its fellows, falling upon the land or upon the lake.
The secret of human action is an open one: something contracts our
muscles. Does it matter if we give to the preparatory molecular changes
the name of will?

Brayton rose to his feet and prepared to back softly away from the
snake, without disturbing it if possible, and through the door. Men
retire so from the presence of the great, for greatness is power and
power is a menace. He knew that he could walk backward without error.
Should the monster follow, the taste which had plastered the walls with
paintings had consistently supplied a rack of murderous Oriental weapons
from which he could snatch one to suit the occasion. In the mean time
the snake's eyes burned with a more pitiless malevolence than before.

Brayton lifted his right foot free of the floor to step backward. That
moment he felt a strong aversion to doing so.

"I am accounted brave," he thought; "is bravery, then, no more than
pride? Because there are none to witness the shame shall I retreat?"

He was steadying himself with his right hand upon the back of a chair,
his foot suspended.

"Nonsense!" he said aloud; "I am not so great a coward as to fear to
seem to myself afraid."

He lifted the foot a little higher by slightly bending the knee and
thrust it sharply to the floor--an inch in front of the other! He could
not think how that occurred. A trial with the left foot had the same
result; it was again in advance of the right. The hand upon the chair
back was grasping it; the arm was straight, reaching somewhat backward.
One might have said that he was reluctant to lose his hold. The snake's
malignant head was still thrust forth from the inner coil as before, the
neck level. It had not moved, but its eyes were now electric sparks,
radiating an infinity of luminous needles.

The man had an ashy pallor. Again he took a step forward, and another,
partly dragging the chair, which when finally released fell upon the
floor with a crash. The man groaned; the snake made neither sound nor
motion, but its eyes were two dazzling suns. The reptile itself was
wholly concealed by them. They gave off enlarging rings of rich and
vivid colors, which at their greatest expansion successively vanished
like soap-bubbles; they seemed to approach his very face, and anon were
an immeasurable distance away. He heard, somewhere, the continuous
throbbing of a great drum, with desultory