I
It
is of veritabyll report, and attested of so many that there be nowe of wyse and
learned none to gaynsaye it, that ye serpente hys eye hath a magnetick
propertie that whosoe falleth into its svasion is drawn forwards in despyte of
his wille, and perisheth miserabyll by ye creature hys byte.
Stretched
at ease upon a sofa, in gown and slippers, Harker Brayton smiled as he read the
foregoing sentence in old Morryster's "Marvells of Science."
"The only marvel in the matter," he said to himself, "is that
the wise and learned in Morryster's day should have believed such nonsense as
is rejected by most of even the ignorant in ours."
A
train of reflections followed--for Brayton was a man of thought-- and he
unconsciously lowered his book without altering the direction of his eyes. As
soon as the volume had gone below the line of sight, something in an obscure
corner of the room recalled his attention to his surroundings. What he saw, in
the shadow under his bed, were two small points of light, apparently about an
inch apart. They might have been reflections of the gas jet above him, in metal
nail heads; he gave them but little thought and resumed his reading. A moment
later something--some impulse which it did not occur to him to
analyze--impelled him to lower the book again and seek for what he saw before.
The points of light were still there. They seemed to have become brighter than
before, shining with a greenish luster which he had not at first observed. He
thought, too, that they might have moved a trifle--were somewhat nearer. They
were still too much in the shadow, however, to reveal their nature and origin
to an indolent attention, and he resumed his reading. Suddenly something in the
text suggested a thought which made him start and drop the book for the third
time to the side of the sofa, whence, escaping from his hand, it fell sprawling
to the floor, back upward. Brayton, half-risen, was staring intently into the
obscurity beneath the bed, where the points of light shone with, it seemed to
him, an added fire. His attention was now fully aroused, his gaze eager and
imperative. It disclosed, almost directly beneath the foot rail of the bed, the
coils of a large serpent--the points of light were its eyes! Its horrible head,
thrust flatly forth from the innermost coil and resting upon the outermost, was
directed straight toward him, the definition of the wide, brutal jaw and the
idiotlike forehead serving to show the direction of its malevolent gaze. The
eyes were no longer merely luminous points; they looked into his own with a
meaning, a malign significance.
II
A
snake in a bedroom of a modern city dwelling of the better sort is, happily,
not so common a phenomenon as to make explanation altogether needless. Harker
Brayton, a bachelor of thirty-five, a scholar, idler, and something of an
athlete, rich, popular, and of sound health, had returned to San Francisco from
all manner of remote and unfamiliar countries. His tastes, always a trifle
luxurious, had taken on an added exuberance from long privation; and the
resources of even the Castle Hotel being inadequate for their perfect
gratification, he had gladly accepted the hospitality of his friend, Dr.
Druring, the distinguished scientist. Dr. Druring's house, a large,
old-fashioned one in what was now an obscure quarter of the city, had an outer
and visible aspect of reserve. It plainly would not associate with the
contiguous elements of its altered environment, and appeared to have developed
some of the eccentricities which come of isolation. One of these was a
"wing," conspicuously irrelevant in point of architecture, and no
less rebellious in the matter of purpose; for it was a combination of
laboratory, menagerie, and museum. It was here that the doctor indulged the
scientific side of his nature in the study of such forms of animal life as
engaged his interest and comforted his taste--which, it must be confessed, ran
rather to the lower forms. For one of the higher types nimbly and sweetly to
recommend itself unto his gentle senses, it had at least to retain certain
rudimentary characteristics allying it to such "dragons of the prime"
as toads and snakes. His scientific sympathies were distinctly reptilian; he
loved nature's vulgarians and described himself as the Zola of zoology. His
wife and daughters, not having the advantage to share his enlightened curiosity
regarding the works and ways of our ill-starred fellow-creatures, were, with
needless austerity, excluded from what he called the Snakery, and doomed to
companionship with their own kind; though, to soften the rigors of their lot,
he had permitted them, out of his great wealth, to outdo the reptiles in the
gorgeousness of their surroundings and to shine with a superior splendor.
Architecturally,
and in point of "furnishing," the Snakery had a severe simplicity
befitting the humble circumstances of its occupants, many of whom, indeed,
could not safely have been intrusted with the liberty which is necessary to the
full enjoyment of luxury, for they had the troublesome peculiarity of being
alive. In their own apartments, however, they were under as little personal
restraint as was compatible with their protection from the baneful habit of
swallowing one another; and, as Brayton had thoughtfully been apprised, it was
more than a tradition that some of them had at divers times been found in parts
of the premises where it would have embarrassed them to explain their presence.
Despite the Snakery and its uncanny associations--to which, indeed, he gave
little attention--Brayton found life at the Druring mansion very much to his
mind.
III
Beyond
a smart shock of surprise and a shudder of mere loathing, Mr. Brayton was not
greatly affected. His first thought was to ring the call bell and bring a
servant; but, although the bell cord dangled within easy reach, he made no
movement toward it; it had occurred to his mind that the act might subject him
to the suspicion of fear, which he certainly did not feel. He was more keenly
conscious of the incongruous nature of the situation than affected by its
perils; it was revolting, but absurd.
The
reptile was of a species with which Brayton was unfamiliar. Its length he could
only conjecture; the body at the largest visible part seemed about as thick as
his forearm. In what way was it dangerous, if in any way? Was it venomous? Was
it a constrictor? His knowledge of nature's danger signals did not enable him
to say; he had never deciphered the code.
If
not dangerous, the creature was at least offensive. It was de
trop--"matter out of place"--an impertinence. The gem was unworthy of
the setting. Even the barbarous taste of our time and country, which had loaded
the walls of the room with pictures, the floor with furniture, and the
furniture with bric-a-brac, had not quite fitted the place for this bit of the
savage life of the jungle. Besides--insupportable thought!--the exhalations of
its breath mingled with the atmosphere which he himself was breathing!
These
thoughts shaped themselves with greater or less definition in Brayton's mind,
and begot action. The process is what we call consideration and decision. It is
thus that we are wise and unwise. It is thus that the withered leaf in an
autumn breeze shows 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. People 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 obstruction, and find the door 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 meantime the snake's
eyes burned with a more pitiless malevolence than ever.
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 murmured; "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 seen 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 continual throbbing of a great drum, with desultory bursts of far music,
inconceivably sweet, like the tones of an aeolian harp. He knew it for the
sunrise melody of Memnon's statue, and thought he stood in the Nileside reeds,
hearing, with exalted sense, that immortal anthem through the silence of the
centuries.
The
music ceased; rather, it became by insensible degrees the distant roll of a
retreating thunderstorm. A landscape, glittering with sun and rain, stretched
before him, arched with a vivid rainbow, framing in its giant curve a hundred
visible cities. In the middle distance a vast serpent, wearing a crown, reared
its head out of its voluminous convolutions and looked at him with his dead
mother's eyes. Suddenly this enchanting landscape seemed to rise swiftly
upward, like the drop scene at a theater, and vanished in a blank. Something
struck him a hard blow upon the face and breast. He had fallen to the floor;
the blood ran from his broken nose and his bruised lips. For a moment he was
dazed and stunned, and lay with closed eyes, his face against the door. In a
few moments he had recovered, and then realized that his fall, by withdrawing
his eyes, had broken the spell which held him. He felt that now, by keeping his
gaze averted, he would be able to retreat. But the thought of the serpent
within a few feet of his head, yet unseen--perhaps in the very act of springing
upon him and throwing its coils about his throat--was too horrible. He lifted
his head, stared again into those baleful eyes, and was again in bondage.
The
snake had not moved, and appeared somewhat to have lost its power upon the
imagination; the gorgeous illusions of a few moments before were not repeated.
Beneath that flat and brainless brow its black, beady eyes simply glittered, as
at first, with an expression unspeakably malignant. It was as if the creature,
knowing its triumph assured, had determined to practice no more alluring wiles.
Now
ensued a fearful scene. The man, prone upon the floor, within a yard of his
enemy, raised the upper part of his body upon his elbows, his head thrown back,
his legs extended to their full length. His face was white between its gouts of
blood; his eyes were strained open to their uttermost expansion. There was
froth upon his lips; it dropped off in flakes. Strong convulsions ran through
his body, making almost serpentine undulations. He bent himself at the waist,
shifting his legs from side to side. And every movement left him a little nearer
to the snake. He thrust his hands forward to brace himself back, yet constantly
advanced upon his elbows.
IV
Dr.
Druring and his wife sat in the library. The scientist was in rare good humor.
"I
have just obtained, by exchange with another collector," he said, "a
splendid specimen of the Ophiophagus."
"And
what may that be?" the lady inquired with a somewhat languid interest.
"Why,
bless my soul, what profound ignorance! My dear, a man who ascertains after
marriage that his wife does not know Greek, is entitled to a divorce. The
Ophiophagus is a snake which eats other snakes."
"I
hope it will eat all yours," she said, absently shifting the lamp.
"But how does it get the other snakes? By charming them, I suppose."
"That
is just like you, dear," said the doctor, with an affectation of
petulance. "You know how irritating to me is any allusion to that vulgar
superstition about the snake's power of fascination."
The
conversation was interrupted by a mighty cry which rang through the silent
house like the voice of a demon shouting in a tomb. Again and yet again it
sounded, with terrible distinctness. They sprang to their feet, the man
confused, the lady pale and speechless with fright. Almost before the echoes of
the last cry had died away the doctor was out of the room, springing up the
staircase two steps at a time. In the corridor, in front of Brayton's chamber,
he met some servants who had come from the upper floor. Together they rushed at
the door without knocking. It was unfastened, and gave way. Brayton lay upon
his stomach on the floor, dead. His head and arms were partly concealed under
the foot rail of the bed. They pulled the body away, turning it upon the back.
The face was daubed with blood and froth, the eyes were wide open, staring--a
dreadful sight!
"Died
in a fit," said the scientist, bending his knee and placing his hand upon
the heart. While in that position he happened to glance under the bed. "Good
God!" he added; "how did this thing get in here?"
He
reached under the bed, pulled out the snake, and flung it, still coiled, to the
center of the room, whence, with a harsh, shuffling sound, it slid across the
polished floor till stopped by the wall, where it lay without motion. It was a
stuffed snake; its eyes were two shoe buttons.
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