Page:The Partisan (revised).djvu/122

 "And yet, Lieutenant Porgy," said he, looking round him with a most wo-begone apprehension—"yet did our friend Humphries assure me that our new occupation was one of perfect security. 'Perfect security' were the precise words he used when he counselled me to this undertaking."

"Perfect security!" said Porgy, and the man laughed out aloud. "Why, doctor, look there at the snake winding over the bank before you—look at that, and then talk of perfect security."

The doctor turned his eyes to the designated point, and beheld the long and beautiful volumes of the beaded snake, as slowly crossing their path with his pack of linked jewels full in their view, he wound his way from one bush into another, and gradually folded himself up out of sight. The doctor, however, was not to be alarmed by this survey. He had a passion for snakes; and admiration suspended all his fear, as he gazed upon the beautiful and not dangerous reptile.

"Now would I rejoice, Lieutenant Porgy, were yon serpent in my poor cabinet at Dorchester. He would greatly beautify my collection." And as the man of simples spoke, he gazed on the retiring snake with envying eye.

"Well, doctor, get down and chunk it. If it's worth having, it's worth killing."

"True, Lieutenant Porgy; but it would be greatly detrimental to my shoes to alight in such a place as this, for the thick mud would adhere—"

"Ay, and so would you, doctor—you'd stick—but not the snake. But come, don't stand looking after the bush, if you won't go into it. You can get snakes enough in the swamp—ay, and without much seeking. The place is full of them."

"This of a certainty, Lieutenant Porgy? know you this?"

"Ay, I know it of my own knowledge. You can see them here almost any hour in the day, huddled up like a coil of rope on the edge of the tussock, and looking down at their own pretty figures in the water."

"And you think the serpent has vanity of his person?" inquired the doctor, gravely.

"Think—I don't think about, it, doctor—I know it," replied the