Then the feeling of pressure
increased and was very curious and was as if I had a heavy object like
a crowbar lying across my foot, and at length I looked down at my
feet, and to my amazement and horror spied the great black snake
slowly drawing his long coil across my instep! I dared not move, but
gazed down fascinated with the sight of that glistening black
cylindrical body drawn so slowly over my foot. He had come out of the
moat, which was riddled at the sides with rat-holes, and had most
probably been there hunting for rats when my wandering footsteps
disturbed him and sent him home to his den; and making straight for
it, as his way was, he came to my foot, and instead of going round
drew himself over it. After the first spasm of terror I knew I was
perfectly safe, that he would not turn upon me so long as I remained
quiescent, and would presently be gone from sight. And that was my
last sight of him; in vain I watched and waited for him to appear on
many subsequent days: but that last encounter had left in me a sense
of a mysterious being, dangerous on occasion as when attacked or
insulted, and able in some cases to inflict death with a sudden blow,
but harmless and even friendly or beneficent towards those who
regarded it with kindly and reverent feelings in place of hatred.
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