Believing it to be a bird moving in the branches, she was resigning herself again to rest, when she became sensible of a strange emotion--a conviction that something was watching her with a fixed gaze.

She cast her eyes around, but saw nothing.

She looked upward.

From the tree immediately above her lap depended a snake, its tail coiled around a dead branch.

The reptile hung straight, its eyes fixed like two rubies upon Helen's, as very slowly it let itself down by its uncoiling tail.