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Show AN UNPLEASANT EXPERIENCE. One knows not of a more terrible situation for a man to be in then to be awoke by a venomous snake falling on him. An English officer in India tells of his experience in this sort of terror: It was the worst season of the year for venomous creatures, when Tom Norris and myself were occupying a small bungalow at Jabbulpore. We slept in the same room each of us having a lounge, and it was about two o'clock in the morning, and pitch dark, when I was awakened by something striking me on the back and falling, as the sound seemed to indicate, in a coil upon the floor. "What's that?" exclaimed my friend, who awoke at the same instant, and I made no reply, for I had the strongest possible dislike to say what I believed it was. "What's that?" he asked again; and then I answered, "I think it's a snake, and he has bitten me; will you get up and go for a light?" Tom Norris lay still for a while. Then he said, "Now look here, old fellow, if a cobra has bitten you, he won't do you the least additional harm if he bites you again; but what is the use of my being bitten too? Hadn't you better get up and go for the light yourself!" Could any logic have been more reasonable? I at once got up, and after some trouble procured a light, and we began our search for the snake. But first Tom Norris examined the place where I had been bitten, and his face grew very grave, for there were the two punctures, and it seemed clear that a snake had injured me. We hunted about the house for ten minutes, and although I felt myself growing drowsy, I began to hope that it was not a cobra, but some less venomous reptile that had bitten me. At last the mystery was solved. As we entered the bath-room, a wild cat, that for some incomprehensible reason had taken refuge in the bungalow, went flying, half-mad with fright, out of the window, carrying half a dozen panes of glass with her in her exit. In her confusion she had evidently jumped upon the bed, and her claws had penetrated my back, making two little holes precisely like the bite of a cobra. To say that I was relieved would give you a very poor idea of my sentiments as the cat sprang through the window. All my drowsiness vanished, and I slept no more that night. |