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 thunder-storm. 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 theatre, 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 time he was dazed and
stunned, and lay with closed eyes, his face against the floor. In a few
moments he had recovered, and then knew that this fall, by withdrawing
his eyes, had broken the spell that 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, assured of its triumph, had
determined to practise 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 stains 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
serpentile 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 h