IN THE SHADOW OF THE PYRAMIDS
Joe’s blood chilled with horror and his heart seemed for a moment to stop beating.
He did not dare to move and scarcely to breathe. He might have been a statue, so rigid was his attitude. He knew that the least movement would provoke an attack on the part of the deadly reptile.
On the other hand, if he kept perfectly quiet, there was the chance of the snake gliding away through the window, which had evidently been its means of entering the room.
Whether the serpent saw him or not, Joe could not tell. The head swayed for a minute or two, while the glowing eyes seemed to take in every corner of the room. Then the coils unwound and with a slithering sound the snake began to crawl across the floor.
But instead of seeking the window it was gliding towards the bed!
If he had had a revolver Joe would have had 214 a chance, for at such close range he could scarcely have missed. Even a knife to hurl, though only a forlorn hope, might have pinned the snake to the floor. But he was utterly without a weapon of any kind.
Suddenly he remembered the cane that his chum had leaned against the footboard a few hours earlier.
He reached down stealthily and his hand closed upon it.
He did not dare to wake Jim for fear that the latter might leap from the bed and perhaps land squarely on the gliding death that was somewhere in the room. He had lost sight of it, but he could still hear the dragging body and it seemed to be now under the bed. At any instant that awful head might rise on either side prepared to strike.
Gripping the cane until his fingers seemed to dig into it, Joe had a moment of awful suspense.
The gliding sound had ceased. Then from the side nearest Jim a hideous head uprose within a foot of the sleeping man’s face.
Like a flash the tough cane hissed through the air with all Joe’s muscle back of it. It caught the reptile full in the neck and sent it half way across the room where it lay writhing.
In an instant Joe had leaped to the floor, 215 raining blows upon the head and floundering coils, until at last the reptile straightened out and lay still.
“What’s the matter?” cried Jim, awakened by the tumult and jumping out of bed.
He turned pale as he saw the snake stretched out on the floor and Joe who, now that the awful strain was over, was leaning against the wall as limp as a rag.
Jim turned on the light and they viewed the monster, standing at a respectful distance from the head.
“He seems dead enough, but you can never be sure of a snake,” said Joe, after in a few hurried words he had told of his experience. “Suppose, Jim, you get that Malay’s knife out of my trunk and we’ll make certain.”
Jim brought the kriss, which Joe had kept as a memento of his struggle with the maniac, and with one stroke severed the cobra’s head from his body.
“That knife never did a better bit of work,” he commented as he washed it off. “Now let’s get this thing out of the window and clear up the mess.”
They got through the repugnant work as soon as possible and then made a careful search of the room.
“That fellow may have had a mate,” remarked 216 Joe, “and one experience of this kind is enough for a lifetime. I’ve always felt a little doubtful about those stories of people whose hair turned gray in a single night, but it’s easy enough to believe it now.”
“We’ll close the window too,” said Jim, suiting the action to the word and letting the upper sash down only for an inch or two. “That’s the way that fellow must have crawled in. It’s pretty hot in here but I’d rather die of heat than snake bites.”
They went back to bed but not to sleep, for they were too thoroughly wrought up by their narrow escape.
“You must have hit that fellow an awful crack,” said Jim. “You sure batted .300 in the Ceylon League.”
“Broke his neck, I guess,” responded Joe. “It’s lucky it wasn’t a missed strike for I wouldn’t have had time for another one.”
“Don’t let’s say anything to the girls about it,” suggested Jim. “Not until we get away from India anyway. They’d be seeing snakes all the rest of the time we’re here.”
It was lucky that neither of them was slated to pitch the next day, for they would scarcely have been in condition after their night’s experience. A game had been arranged between the visiting teams at a date three days later. By that time Joe was in his usual superb form and easily carried 217 off the victory for his team. This put the Giants “on velvet,” for they now had a clear lead of two over the All-Americans.
But the satisfaction that this would have usually given Joe was lacking now. Victory had ceased to be sweet since the receipt of that newspaper from home.
Perhaps it was because of his sensitive condition that he thought he detected a subtle change in the conduct of his team mates towards him. While perfectly friendly in their relations with him, they did not “let themselves go” when in his presence, as formerly. There was no boisterous clapping on the back, no jolly sparring or wrestling. There seemed to be a little holding in, a feeling of reserve, a something in the back of their minds that they did not care for him to see.
This joyous freemasonry of sport had always been especially pleasant to Joe and for that reason he felt its absence the more keenly.
But what exasperated him most was that if the old standbys of the club were a trifle cool, Iredell, Curry and Burkett went to the other extreme and were more cordial than ever before. It was as though they were welcoming a newcomer to their ranks. They knew that they were under suspicion of planning to jump their contracts in the spring, and the apparent evidence that so renowned a player as Joe was planning to do the 218 same thing made them hail him as a reinforcement.
Where formerly they had often ceased talking when he approached them and made him feel that he was an intruder, they now greeted him warmly, although they did not yet feel quite sure enough to broach the subject of their own accord.
“All little pals together,” hummed Iredell significantly on one occasion with a sidelong glance at Joe.
“Just what do you mean by that?” asked Joe sharply.
“Just what I say,” replied Iredell innocently. “What is there wrong about that? Aren’t we Giants pals to each other?”
“Of course we are, as long as we stay Giants,” replied Joe. “But that wasn’t what you meant, Dell, and you know it.”
“Now, don’t get red-headed, Joe,” put in Curry soothingly. “You must have got out of bed on the wrong side this morning. Dell didn’t mean any harm.”
“Tell me one thing,” said Joe. “Do any of you fellows believe for one minute that story in the paper?”
He looked from one to the other, but none of them looked him straight in the eye.
“You know that I’ve denied it,” went on Joe, as they kept silent, “and if after that you still 219 believe the story it’s the same as saying that I lie. And no one can call me a liar and get away with it.”
He stalked away leaving them dumbfounded.
“Do you think he really has jumped his contract?” asked Burkett.
“I don’t know,” replied Iredell dubiously.
“He’s got me guessing,” muttered Curry.
And the trio were still guessing when several weeks later the party reached Egyptian soil, prepared to play the most modern of games before the most ancient of monuments—baseball in the very shadow of the Pyramids!