have bitten your wife?"

"A snake," gasped John, "a green snake of the worst sort."

Then Owen remembered the superstition, and snatching blue-stone and
spirits of wine from his medicine chest, he rushed to John's hut. As it
happened, he was fortunately in time with his remedies and succeeded
in saving the woman's life, whereby his reputation as a doctor and a
magician, already great, was considerably enlarged.

"Where is the snake?" he asked when at length she was out of danger.

"Yonder, under the kaross," answered John, pointing to a skin rug which
lay in the corner.

"Have you killed it?"

"No, Messenger," answered the man, "I dare not. Alas! we must live with
the thing here in the hut till it chooses to go away."

"Truly," said Owen, "I am ashamed to think that you who are a Christian
should still believe so horrible a superstition. Does your faith teach
you that the souls of men enter into snakes?"

Now John hung his head; then snatching a kerry, he threw aside the
kaross, revealing a great green serpent seven or eight feet long. With
fury he fell upon the reptile, killed it by repeated blows, and hurled
it into the courtyard outside the house.

"Behold, father," he said, "and judge whether I am still superstitious."