all its energy for a supreme effort--for one leap to liberty and
life--while its impassive foe stolidly concentrated its powers in the
direction of an instantaneous release and a fresh grip at a convenient
part. Thus they lay. A thrill of excitement possessed me as I watched.
The flashing alertness of a fly-catching lizard, is it not proverbial?
Which was to be the master--the more muscular creature with four legs, the
whole previous existence of which had depended upon its agility, or the
subtle, slow, snake, which moves under ordinary circumstances not very
much faster than a clammy worm? As I watched with all possible keenness a
grey blur followed by bewildering wrigglings and contortions indicated a
new manoeuvre. Then instead of two reptiles at right angles, there
appeared to be but one, and with a tail at each end. The head of the
lizard was in the jaws of the death-adder. The fatal quickness of the
snake had decided the combat.

But the lizard was not yet resigned to its fate. It rolled and reared and
wriggled, tossing and tumbling the adder; but all in vain.

Alas! light-hearted lizard, servant and trustful companion of man, thou
art joined in woeful issue! There can be no deliverance for thy jewelled
head from that slow, all-absorbing chancery! No striving, no pushing with
frenzied fingers, no lashing with that whip-like tail may now avail.
Never more may you bask and blink in the glare, or doze in the
knife-edged shadows, or pounce upon gauze-winged flies. Thou hast learned
too late that snakes, like democracy, never restore anything.

I waited for the finish, which came with painful slowness. The sides of
the victim heaved and quivered even as they slowly disappeared and the
end of that once foppish tail twitched sadly as it hung limply from the
jaws of the gorged snake.