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The snake sucked down the frog, and the frog seemed to acquiesce until the half of his body was down the snake's gullet, and then the frog bestirred himself and succeeded in escaping. The snake rested awhile and the next day he renewed his attack. At last the day came when the weary frog delayed too long and Ned watched him disappear down the snake's gullet.

I had now got firm hold of his tail; and after a violent struggle or two he gave in, finding himself overpowered. This was the moment to secure him. So while the first negro continued to hold the lance firm to the ground, and the other was helping me, I contrived to unloose my braces and with them tied up the snake's mouth.

In spite of these peaceable incidents there were occasional threats of Indian treachery, like the theft of tools from two woodsmen and the later bold challenge in the form of a headless arrow wrapped in a snake's skin; the latter was returned promptly and decisively with the skin filled with bullets, and the danger was over for a time.

At length its eyes fell upon the milk, and in an instant it was lapping it so fast that it was a wonder the creature did not choke, for it never took its head from the bowl as long as a drop was left in it. After that it dropped on the ground and slept heavily. This was what the princess had been waiting for, and, catching up her husband's sword, she severed the snake's head from its body.

The man couldn't help being born with a face like that; and perhaps an ugly exterior might in reality hide a very kind and gentle soul. By the time that Frobisher had arrived at the wharf where the Su-chen was lying, he had completely forgotten the existence of "the man with the snake's eyes", as he afterwards came to call him.

Darzee's wife knew better than to do that, for a bird who looks at a snake's eyes gets so frightened that she cannot move. Darzee's wife fluttered on, piping sorrowfully, and never leaving the ground, and Nagaina quickened her pace. Rikki-tikki heard them going up the path from the stables, and he raced for the end of the melon-patch near the wall.

When directly over its victim the jelly globule again sank till it touched the middle of the reptile's back. The serpent immediately coiled itself in a knot, but was already dead. The jellyfish did not swallow, but completely surrounded its prey, and again rose in the air, with the snake's black body clearly visible within it.

The unnumbered birds were every one awake, responsive and emulous. The deep silence of midsummer was broken up. It was like another spring. The Princess Ysolinde came out to take the air. She was wrapped in her gown of sea-green silk, with sparkles of dull copper upon it. The dress fitted her like a snake's skin, and glittered like it too as she swayed her lithe body in walking.

The expression of this snake's face was hideous and fierce; the pupil consisted of a vertical slit in a mottled and coppery iris; the jaws were broad at the base, and the nose terminated in a triangular projection. I do not think I ever saw anything more ugly, excepting, perhaps, some of the vampire bats.

Down at the lower end of our selection Mary called it 'the run' was a shallow watercourse called Snake's Creek, dry most of the year, except for a muddy water-hole or two; and, just above the junction, where it ran into Lahey's Creek, was a low piece of good black-soil flat, on our side about three acres.