He
rose up from his seat to look round for other signs of a woman's
visits. What if there is a cavern here, where she has a retreat,
fitted up, perhaps, as anchorites fitted their cells,--nay, it may
be, carpeted and mirrored, and with one of those tiger-skins for a
couch, such as they say the girl loves to lie on? Let us look, at any
rate.
Mr. Bernard walked to the mouth of the cavern or fissure and looked
into it. His look was met by the glitter of two diamond eyes, small,
sharp, cold, shining out of the darkness, but gliding with a smooth,
steady motion towards the light, and himself. He stood fixed, struck
dumb, staring back into them with dilating pupils and sudden numbness
of fear that cannot move, as in the terror of dreams. The two sparks
of light came forward until they grew to circles of flame, and all at
once lifted themselves up as if in angry surprise. Then for the first
time thrilled in Mr. Bernard's ears the dreadful sound that nothing
which breathes, be it man or brute, can hear unmoved,--the long,
loud, stinging whirr, as the huge, thick-bodied reptile shook his
many-jointed rattle and flung his jaw back for the fatal stroke.
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