d eaten
Bena. But it was all right, Baas; the goat knew what it had to do and
did it, jumping straight into the cave. As it entered it turned its head
and looked at me. I could see its eyes in the starlight, and, Baas, they
were dreadful. I think it knew what was coming and did not like it at
all. And yet it had to walk on because it could not help it. Just like a
man going to the devil, Baas!

"Holding on to the stone I peered after it, for I had heard something
stirring in the cave making a soft noise like a white lady's dress upon
the floor. There in the blackness I saw two little sparks of fire, which
were the eyes of the serpent, Baas. Then I heard a sound of hissing like
four big kettles boiling all at once, and a little bleat from the goat.
After this there was a noise as of men wrestling, followed by another
noise as of bones breaking, and lastly, yet another sucking noise as of
a pump that won't draw up the water. Then everything grew nice and quiet
and I went some way off, sat down a little to one side of the cave, and
waited to see if anything happened.

"It must have been nearly an hour later that something did begin to
happen, Baas. It was as though sacks filled with chaff were being beaten
against stone walls there in the cave. Ah! thought I to myself, your
stomach is beginning to ache, Eater-up-of-Bena, and, as that goat had
little horns on its head--to which I tied two of the bags of the poison,
Baas--and, like all snakes, no doubt you have spikes in your throat
pointing downwards, you won't be able to get it up again. Then--I
expect this was after the poison-sugar had begun to melt nicely in the
serpent's stomach, Baas--there was a noise as though a whole company of
girls were dancing a war-dance in the cave to a music of hisses.

"And then--oh! then, Baas, of a sudden that Father of Serpents came out.
I tell you, Baas, that when I saw him in the bright starlight my hair
stood up upon my head, for never has there been such another snake in
the whole world. Those that live in trees and eat bucks in Zululand, of
whose skins men make waistcoats and slippers, are but babies compared
to this one. He came out, yard after yard of him. He wriggled about, he
stood upon his tail with his head where the top of a tree might be, he
made himself into a ring, he bit at stones and at his own stomach, while
I hid behind my rock praying to your reverend father that he might not
see me. Then at last he rushed away down