For some time he lay listening intently. Once or twice he fancied that
he heard the rustle of the snake over the dingy carpet, and he wondered
whether it would attempt to climb on to the bed. He stood up, and tried
to get his revolver from the drawers. It was out of reach, and as the
bed creaked beneath his weight, a faint hiss sounded from the floor, and
he sat still again, hardly daring to breathe.

The cold rawness of the room chilled him. He cautiously drew the
bed-clothes towards him, and rolled himself up in them, leaving only his
head and arms exposed. In this position he began to feel more secure,
until the thought struck him that the snake might be inside them. He
fought against this idea, and tried to force his nerves into steadiness.
Then his fears suggested that two might have been placed in the bed. At
this his fears got the upper hand, and it seemed to him that something
stirred in the clothes. He drew his body from them slowly and
stealthily, and taking them in his arms, flung them violently to the
other end of the room. On his hands and knees he now travelled over the
bare bed, feeling. There was nothing there.

In this state of suspense and dread time seemed to stop. Several times
he thought that the thing had got on the bed, and to stay there in
suspense in the darkness was impossible. He felt it over again and
again. At last, unable to endure it any longer, he resolved to obtain
the matches, and stepped cautiously off the bed; but no sooner had
his feet touched the floor than his courage forsook him, and he sprang
hurriedly back to his refuge again.

After that, in a spirit of dogged fatalism, he sat still and waited.
To his disordered mind it seemed that footsteps were moving about the
house, but they had no terrors for him. To grapple with a man for life
and death would be play; to kill him, joy unspeakable. He sat still,
listening. He heard rats in the walls and a babel of jeering voices
on the stair-case. The whole blackness of the room with the devilish,
writhing thing on the floor became invested with supernatural
significance. Then, dimly at first, and hardly comprehending the joy of
it, he saw the window. A little later he saw the outlines of the things
in the room. The night had passed and he was alive!

He raised his half-frozen body to its full height, and, expanding his
chest, planted his feet firmly on the bed, stretching his long body
to the utmost. He clenched his fist, and felt stro