snuffing and
striving to free themselves.

"They've seen or scented something," pronounced Verna.

"Well, we'd better investigate," said Denham, holding ready the small
bore, yet hard-hitting, rifle he had brought with him in view of
"specimens," and advancing in the direction to which the horses' fears
pointed. "Keep back, Verna. It may be a snake or a leopard."

Hardly were the words uttered than a serpentine head and neck of a dull
yellow colour rose up out of the herbage, then subsided, with a
half-startled hiss. Denham felt his sleeve plucked, as though to arrest
his advance.

"Leave it, and come away," Verna whispered. "It's the _indhlondhlo_.
They're frightfully dangerous."

"Leave it?" he whispered back. "Why, it's the very thing I've been
hoping to come upon all these weeks! Leave it? Not for anything."

"Not for me?"

"For you? Wait a bit, Verna, and follow my plan. You'll see something
directly. Take the rifle"--handing it to her--"go a few yards back, and
when I clench my open hand behind me, like this, shoot. Aim at the
lowest part of the neck so as not to spoil the skin. But don't make any
_sudden_ movement whatever you do."

His nerves were thrilling now with excitement suppressed but intense.
All the "collector" was predominant; he only saw before him the
"specimen," the rare "specimen," which he had coveted so long in vain.
Dangerous! Well, many wild animals were that, but they were "collected"
all the same.

"But I warn you it's deadly dangerous," she repeated; yet she carried
out his orders implicitly.

Denham began to whistle in a low, but exquisitely clear tone. This he
raised gradually, but always continuous, and never sounding a false
note. The effect was magical. The yellow head and neck shot up again
above the herbage, waved a moment, then remained perfectly still. No
hissing or hostile sign proceeded from the entranced reptile, for
entranced it certainly was. Verna waiting, the rifle held ready, was
entranced too, and as those sweet, clear notes swelled by degrees higher
and higher to sink in faultlessly harmonised modulation, then to rise
again, something of an eerie magnetism thrilled through her being as
though she shared the influence with the formidable and deadly reptile
thus held in thrall. Moments seemed hours. Would he never give the
signal? A little more of this and even her nerves would be too much
strung to reply to it.

The melody rose higher an