ADVENTURE WITH A COBRA DI CAPELLO. 229 



After a fatiguing and monotonous journey, we reached 

 a small village just before dark. The inhabitants appeared 

 peaceable and industrious, and they certainly were hospi- 

 table, for they offered us their best houses for lodgings, 

 and took good care of our horses. The weather was quite 

 sultry, and we were exceedingly glad when we could retire 

 to rest in the airy, bamboo-walled rooms set apart for our 

 accommodation. The room, in which I and one of the 

 Parsees were directed to sleep, opened at the rear of the 

 house, upon a beautiful green, decked with flowers. We 

 kept the door wide open, in order to let in as much air as 

 possible, and stretched ourselves within a few paces of it, 

 the Parsee being on one side of the room and I on the 

 other. For a few moments after lying down on the mat- 

 tress, I conversed with the Parsee in regard to the extent 

 of our journey, and then, as he sank into the downy arms 

 of Morpheus, I amused myself by gazing out on the green, 

 till my senses, also, yielded to the drowsy god. I had 

 slept several hours when I began to have a visible per- 

 ception of peril an apprehension of imminent death. Most 

 persons have heard that if the eyes of a watcher are con- 

 stantly fixed on the countenance of a sleeper, for a cer- 

 tain length of time, the slumberer will start up, awakened 

 by some mysterious magnetism. So it was, that with 

 closed eyes and drowsy senses, I was conscious of a mys- 

 terious horror crouching beside me ; and, as if the peril 



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