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Garnet smiled in scorn, far from guessing that soon, almost as soon as yonder receding clatter of hoofs should pass into silence, the venomous thing from which he had lifted his heel would coil and strike, and that another back, a little one that had never felt the burden of a sin or a task, or aught heavier than the sun's kiss, was to take its turn at writhing and burning like fire.
Yet I feared Beorn's treachery, and doubted for a while, until the coil of rope that lay at my feet caught my eye as I pondered. With that I made no more ado, but took it and bound him lightly, so that at least he could not rise up unheard by me. Nor did he stir or do aught but breathe heavily and slowly as I handled him. When he roused I knew that I could so deal with him that I might unbind him.
The great room with its dingy wainscot only half lighted by the candles on the table before us, was cluttered with a hundred odds and ends that collect in a deserted house a ladder, a stiff, rusted bridle, a coil of frayed rope, a kettle, a dozen sheets of the Gazette, empty bottles, dusty crockery and broken chairs. He surveyed them all with a bland, uncritical glance.
As she did so Doltaire made a motion to Gabord, and he shut the door quickly on us. Mere St. George looked up from the paper, startled and frightened too. "Your Excellency!" she exclaimed. "You are the first to call me so," he replied. "I thought to leave untouched this good gift of the King, and to let the Marquis de Vaudreuil and the admirable Bigot untwist the coil they have made. But no.
"Why didn't you put her in a sack?" inquired the pacha, when Mustapha explained. "Put her head in a bag no, she wasn't so ugly as all that," replied the sailor. "Howsomever, to coil away." I joined a privateer brig, and after three cruises I had plenty of money, and determined to have another spell on shore, that I might get rid of it.
They had got together for her a kind of evening dress, a pale blue chiffon-like drapery that left her lovely arms and shoulders bare and clung softly to the lines of her figure. They did her hair up in a graceful sweep from the brow and a simple coil behind.
"It remains to be proved whether this gallant has clean hands or not," said Sancho; and turning to the man he asked him what he had to say in answer to the woman's charge. As I was returning to my village I fell in on the road with this good dame, and the devil who makes a coil and a mess out of everything, yoked us together.
And then his voice died away against the stony immobility of the man opposite as laughter sinks to nothing against the horror of a great darkness. Bennington began to feel impressed in earnest. Across his mind crept doubts as to the outcome. He almost screamed aloud as some one stole up behind and dropped over his throat the soft cold coil of a lariat.
He inserted the funnel into one end of the garden hose, and made it fast by wrappings of cord. Then he arranged the hose in a double, circular coil, tied it so that it would remain coiled, and blew into the other end.
But as he stood there perfectly quiescent for, as it seemed to him, a quarter of an hour or more the actual length of time did not probably exceed three seconds a sharp rattling of the dry twigs over his head and a heavy thud met his ears, a little shower of twigs and leaves rained down upon him, and at the same instant a terrific upheaval occurred in the canoe, coil upon coil the vast length of the serpent's body leaped into view, and plunged over the side, there was a violent rustling and crackling of branches for a few seconds as the monster snake writhed its irresistible way through the neighbouring bushes; and then it was gone.
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