I AM HELPED TO JUMP. 
189 
such a feat extremely improbable, and continued my 
occupation of getting up a certain amount of friction 
between myself and the mountain. I hung in this way 
probably as much as a minute, listening to Rose’s excited 
suggestions and feeling far from comfortable. I felt 
M’hat M-as to be done, but revolted from the idea. The 
prospect of breaking several bones, of being run through 
the body by one of the ‘bayonets,’ or of alighting 
among several nests of snakes, was almost as bad as 
that held out by a pitch down the fissure. At last I 
was helped to action in a most unpleasant way. My 
right hand grasped the bunch of grass, and before making 
the leap I must take it in my left, as the fissure was to 
my right. Cautiously I commenced the exchange, watch- 
ing the straining fibres with an anxious eye, and keep- 
ing my muscles braced for the jump should they fail me 
before I was ready. 
“Just then I caught the sullen glare of two other eyes, 
— sullen and leaden, and yet bright and sparkling also 
with alarmed rage. They belonged to the flattened head 
of an ugly-looking snake, whose sinuous body and up- 
lifted front indicated an active readiness for either flight 
or attack. 
“I gazed and shuddered. I shudder now as the mind’s 
eye returns to those flaming specks of rage which flashed 
their angry light within a foot of my nerveless hand. I 
looked back to the commencement of time, and read 
the truth of Holy Writ in their expression of deadly 
hostility ‘And I will put enmity between thee and the 
woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall 
bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.’ After 
