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90. She was very fond of me. I wondered if it would give her much pain. Those I had seen die in the cave suffered terribly. For a second I nearly lost control over myself, and called to her not to lie down. I checked this weakness, and waited anxiously to hear her cry. But no cry was uttered; she covered herself up with hair and went to sleep.

I never took my eyes off her, and kept acting over in my own mind the scene that I expected to occur momentarily.

How the snake would wake her up by biting her!

How she would start, put her hand to the place to see what it was, feel the snake, yell, jump up, stagger about, then fall in convulsions on the ground and die in agony!

This passed through my mind scores of times, each time with some other slight incident coupled to it, until it assumed so appalling a shape and so terrified me, that I determined to creep over and try and capture the snake and kill it before it bit her.

Rising to my feet very carefully, so as to make no noise, I approached the hair she was lying on.

I saw the head of the snake protruding from under the hair. Darting forward I tried to grasp it, but it was too quick, and slipped back amongst the hair.