in
the centre there was a small slit as if cut by a penknife. The great
coils slowly expanded and fell again as the animal breathed; otherwise
the fixed stare of those yellow eyes might have been taken for the stare
of death.

"I don't think the anaconda is poisonous at all," said she, lightly.

"But if you were to meet that beast in a jungle," said he, "what
difference would that make!"

He spoke reproachfully, as if she were luring him into some secret place
to have him slain with poisonous fangs. He passed on from that case to
the others unwillingly. The room was still. Most of the snakes would
have seemed dead but for the malign stare of the beaded eyes. He seemed
anxious to get out; the atmosphere of the place was hot and oppressive.

But just at the door there was a case some quick motion in which caught
his eye, and despite himself he stopped to look. The inside of this
glass box was alive with snakes--raising their heads in the air, slimily
crawling over each other, the small black forked tongues shooting in and
out, the black points of eyes glassily staring. And the object that had
moved quickly was a wretched little yellow frog, that was not motionless
in a dish of water, its eyes apparently starting out of its head with
horror. A snake made its appearance over the edge of the dish. The
shooting black tongue approached the head of the frog; and then the
long, sinuous body glided along the edge of the dish again, the frog
meanwhile being too paralyzed with fear to move. A second afterward the
frog, apparently recovering, sprung clean out of the basin; but it was
only to alight on the backs of two or three of the reptiles lying coiled
up together. It made another spring, and got into a corner among some
grass, But along that side of the case another of those small, flat,
yellow marked heads was slowly creeping along, propelled by the
squirming body; and again the frog made a sudden spring, this time
leaping once more into the shallow water, where, it stood and panted,
with its eyes dilated. And now a snake that had crawled up the side of
the case put out its long neck as if to see whither it should proceed.
There was nothing to lay hold of. The head swayed and twisted, the
forked tongue shooting out; and at last the snake fell away from its
hold, and splashed right into the basin of water on the top of the frog.
There was a wild shooting this way and that--but Macleod did not see the
end of it. He had uttere