ountry-instinct,--relic, no doubt, of the
old vegetable-feeding habits of Eden. Is that a stem or a straw? He
picked it up. It was a hairpin.

To say that Mr. Langdon had a strange sort of thrill shoot through
him at the sight of this harmless little implement would be a
statement not at variance with the fact of the case. That smooth
stone had been often trodden, and by what foot he could not doubt. He
rose up from his seat to look round for other signs of a woman's
visits. What if there is a cavern here, where she has a retreat,
fitted up, perhaps, as anchorites fitted their cells,--nay, it may
be, carpeted and mirrored, and with one of those tiger-skins for a
couch, such as they say the girl loves to lie on? Let us look, at any
rate.

Mr. Bernard walked to the mouth of the cavern or fissure and looked
into it. His look was met by the glitter of two diamond eyes, small,
sharp, cold, shining out of the darkness, but gliding with a smooth,
steady motion towards the light, and himself. He stood fixed, struck
dumb, staring back into them with dilating pupils and sudden numbness
of fear that cannot move, as in the terror of dreams. The two sparks
of light came forward until they grew to circles of flame, and all at
once lifted themselves up as if in angry surprise. Then for the first
time thrilled in Mr. Bernard's ears the dreadful sound that nothing
which breathes, be it man or brute, can hear unmoved,--the long,
loud, stinging whirr, as the huge, thick-bodied reptile shook his
many-jointed rattle and flung his jaw back for the fatal stroke. His
eyes were drawn as with magnets toward the circles of flame. His ears
rung as in the overture to the swooning dream of chloroform. Nature
was before man with her anesthetics: the cat's first shake stupefies
the mouse; the lion's first shake deadens the man's fear and feeling;
and the _crotalus_ paralyzes before he strikes. He waited as in a
trance,--waited as one that longs to have the blow fall, and all
over, as the man who shall be in two pieces in a second waits for the
axe to drop. But while he looked straight into the flaming eyes, it
seemed to him that they were losing their light and terror, that they
were growing tame and dull; the open jaws closed, the neck fell
backward and downward on the coil from which it rose, the charm was
dissolving, the numbness was passing away, he could move once more.
He heard a light breathing close to his ear, and, half turning, saw
the fa