its crest; the throat swelled with venom, the tongue darted out, and
again, green as emeralds, glared the spite of its eyes. No fear felt
Gabriel Varney; his arm was averted; he gazed, spelled and admiringly,
with the eye of an artist. Had he had pencil and tablet at that moment,
he would have dropped his weapon for the sketch, though the snake had
been as deadly as the viper of Sumatra. The sight sank into his memory,
to be reproduced often by the wild, morbid fancies of his hand. Scarce a
moment, however, had he for the gaze; the reptile sprang, and fell,
baffled and bruised by the involuntary blow of its enemy. As it writhed
on the grass, how its colours came out; how graceful were the movements
of its pain! And still the boy gazed, till the eye was sated and the
cruelty returned. A blow, a second, a third,--all the beauty is gone;
shapeless, and clotted with gore, that elegant head; mangled and
dissevered the airy spires of that delicate shape, which had glanced in
its circling involutions, free and winding as a poet's thought through
his verse. The boy trampled the quivering relics into the sod, with a
fierce animal joy of conquest, and turned once more towards the hollow,
for a last almost hopeless survey. Lo, his object was found! In his
search for the snake, either his staff or his foot had disturbed a layer
of moss in the corner; the faint ray, ere he entered the hollow, gleamed
upon something white. He emerged from the cavity with a letter in his
hand; he read the address, thrust it into his bosom, and as stealthily,
but more rapidly, than he had come, took his way to his father.




CHAPTER V.

HOUSEHOLD TREASON.