CHAPTER LXII. 

 BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! 



'HE hardest thing for Dick Brownell was to resist an inclination which, it 

 obeyed, would have been fatal. 



It seemed to him that by a sudden kick of one of his feet he could fling 

 a part of his blanket over the cobra, and, imprisoning the reptile in the folds, 

 smother him before he could strike, or, at any rate, so entangle him that he could be 

 killed within the cloth. 



But if the first kick should fail to catch the upraised head I 



It was most likely to do so, in which case the spectacled front, with the erect 

 hood, would shoot forward from the blanket, and inject the fatal poison before the 

 lad could make another move. 



No ; the risk was too great. 



His rifle was lying so near him that he could almost reach it without moving, but 

 it might as well have been a hundred miles distant for all the good it could do him. 



His revolver was in his hip pocket, and as he lay on his left side, the weapon 

 being on his right, he hoped that he could draw it forth, and, carefully aiming, send 

 a bullet through the upper part of the serpent's body. 



As slowly as the minute hand glides over the face of the clock the lad began 

 reaching for the pistol ; but at the very first essay the frightful head commenced 

 swaying from side to side in such a threatening manner that he desisted. 



If such a slight movement alarmed the reptile, the act of drawing forth the 

 weapon and pulling the trigger would be sure to excite him to action. No j that 

 would not do. 



All at once a strange idea entered Dick's head. He had seen the serpent- 

 charmers of India, and had witnessed the wonderful manner in which they gov- 

 erned the serpents by their monotonous reed music ; could he not do something in 

 the same line? 



So faintly that his voice scarcely broke the oppressive stillness, he began a low 

 humming, which, at first, was like the soft music of the wind-harp. He attempted 

 no tune, but merely hummed, his voice rising and sinking no more than a note or 

 two of the scale. 



The first result was not calculated to soothe the nerves of the youth. The head 

 of the serpent swayed more and more, from side to side and back and forth, as 

 though the noise irritated him ; but the youth persevered, imparting a certain 

 swing to the music, if it may be termed such, and slightly increasing its volume. 



The first encouragement was when he perceived that the cobra, in its rude way, 



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