ng over me when she pushed me from her so abruptly that I
staggered back against the iron railing of the gallery.

* * * * *

"I gasped and fought for breath like a winded swimmer coming from the
water, but the half-recaptured breath seemed suddenly to catch itself
unbidden in my throat, and a tingling chill went rippling up my spine.
The girl had dropped down to her knees, staring at the door which let
into the house, and as I looked I saw a shadow writhe across the
little pool of moonlight which lay upon the sill. Three feet or so in
length it was, thick through as a man's wrist, the faint light shining
dully on its scaly armor and disclosing the forked lightning of its
darting tongue. It was a cottonmouth--a water moccasin--deadly as a
rattlesnake, but more dangerous, for it sounds no warning before
striking, and can strike when only half coiled. How it came there on
the second-story gallery of a house so far from any swampland I had no
means of knowing, but there it lay, bent in the design of a double S,
its wedge-shaped head swaying on up-reared neck a scant six inches
from the girl's soft bosom, its forked tongue darting deathly menace.
Half paralyzed with fear and loathing, I stood there in a perfect
ecstasy of horror, not daring to move hand or foot lest I aggravate
the reptile into striking. But my terror changed to stark amazement as
my senses slowly registered the scene. The girl was talking to the
snake and--it listened as a person might have done!

"'_Non, non, grand'tante; halte la!_' she whispered. '_Cela est a
moi--il est devoue!_'

"The serpent seemed to pause uncertainly, grudgingly, as though but
half convinced, then shook its head from side to side, much as an aged
person might when only half persuaded by a youngster's argument.
Finally, silently as a shadow, it slithered back again into the
darkness of the house.

"Julie bounded to her feet and put her hands upon my shoulders.

"'You mus' go, my friend,' she whispered fiercely. 'Quickly, ere she
comes again. It was not easy to convince her; she is old and very
doubting. O, I am afraid--afraid!'

"She hid her face against my arm, and I could feel the throbbing of
her heart against me. Her hands stole upward to my cheeks and pressed
them between palms as cold as graveyard clay as she whispered, 'Look
at me, _mon beau_.' Her eyes were closed, her lips were slightly
parted, and beneath the arc of her long lashes I