The long hours of the night passed slowly. Her slumber had been as peaceful and profound as that of a child when, about three o'clock, she suddenly awoke with a start. At first she believed she was still in her luxurious stateroom on board the Atlanta, but the rough couch, the prickly points of which punctured her thin garment, and the splash of the surf outside rudely reminded her of her misfortune.
She wondered what had interrupted her sleep. It was still pitch-dark and everything was quiet, yet she was wide-awake with every sense and nerve alert and tense. Like most persons who awake suddenly in the middle of the night without being able to explain the cause, she was at once seized with nervous dread. Something was wrong.
Hastily, fearfully she glanced around, but her eyes were unable to penetrate the opaque darkness that surrounded her. The faint light that came from the cave entrance only served to make the shadows deeper. She strained her ears, but heard no sound. Yet she could not shake off the terrifying suggestion that some one or something had entered the cave while she was asleep and now stood in the shadows watching her, perhaps waiting for an opportunity to attack her.
The more she thought of the possibility of such a thing, the more alarmed she became, and her nervousness increased each minute until she was bathed in perspiration from head to foot. She tried to reason with herself, to shake off the impression, and with an exclamation of impatience at her own childishness she turned over and again closed her eyes. But as she moved It moved also. Her alert ear caught the sound of a slow and cautious movement, as if some one or something were creeping on all fours toward her. Petrified with fright, her heart in her mouth, she called out:
"Who's there?"
There was no answer, but the sound ceased.
Something was there, that was certain. At any moment it might spring upon her. She shook with terror, her teeth chattered. She dare not make a movement. Her ears were strained for sounds of further moves. Almost rigid with fright, each passing moment seemed a century. If only she could flee from there and reach the open. She was sorry now that Armitage had left her alone. What would she not give to be able to call him now to her aid!
Suddenly the bed moved as though something had accidentally stumbled against it. She distinctly heard a rustling sound as if something had grazed the branches of which her couch was built. The Thing, whatever it was, man or beast, was close to her. The suspense was more than she could bear. Almost swooning from terror she sprang up, and, leaning over the side, peered into the darkness. What she beheld made the blood freeze in her veins.
A long, slimy-looking, sinuous thing, almost as thick as a man's arm and nearly six feet in length, was gliding slowly and aimlessly about in the shadow. In the faint glimmer of light that struggled in from the entrance to the cave was plainly discernible a pair of glistening eyes set in a squat, flat head, and a cruel mouth with fanglike teeth in which a forked tongue darted rapidly back and forth. It was a huge hooded cobra, the deadliest of all the venomous serpents inhabiting tropical Asia.
Panic-stricken, Grace opened her mouth to scream, but no sound issued forth. She tried to flee, but some irresistible power held her rooted to the spot. Every faculty, every muscle in her was paralyzed by unspeakable horror.