CHAPTER VI

Thinking about the forest girl while lying awake that night, I
came to the conclusion that I had made it sufficiently plain to
her how little her capricious behaviour had been relished, and
had therefore no need to punish myself more by keeping any longer
out of my beloved green mansions. Accordingly, next day, after
the heavy rain that fell during the morning hours had ceased, I
set forth about noon to visit the wood. Overhead the sky was
clear again; but there was no motion in the heavy sultry
atmosphere, while dark blue masses of banked-up clouds on the
western horizon threatened a fresh downpour later in the day. My
mind was, however, now too greatly excited at the prospect of a
possible encounter with the forest nymph to allow me to pay any
heed to these ominous signs.

I had passed through the first strip of wood and was in the
succeeding stony sterile space when a gleam of brilliant colour
close by on the ground caught my sight. It was a snake lying on
the bare earth; had I kept on without noticing it, I should most
probably have trodden upon or dangerously near it. Viewing it
closely, I found that it was a coral snake, famed as much for its
beauty and singularity as for its deadly character. It was about
three feet long, and very slim; its ground colour a brilliant
vermilion, with broad jet-black rings at equal distances round
its body, each black ring or band divided by a narrow yellow
strip in the middle. The symmetrical pattern and vividly
contrasted colours would have given it the appearance of an
artificial snake made by some fanciful artist, but for the gleam
of life in its bright coils. Its fixed eyes, too, were living