True, its tail bore a small rounded excrescence which might be an incipient button; but not a real, well-developed one. Somehow the tail looked blunt; as if a rattle once had been there but had been cut off, accidentally or otherwise. It kept moving, so that it was rather vague in outline. There was no doubt, however, about the absence of the horny joints which should have been there.
Narrow-eyed, Douglas stood regarding that unnatural tail. For no apparent reason, he suddenly wheeled and looked at the windows. Against the panes was pressed no leering face. Outside in the moonlight stood no sinister form. Slowly he turned back. Into his mind had flashed the picture of Snake Sanders loosing from a box on Dickie Barre a copperhead. Was the appearance of the snake in this house another attempt of the same sort?
“No,” Reason told him. This thing had not been brought here to-night. It must have been in the place a long time. Two men had been killed by it. One, whose freshly carved headboard even now stood against the wall, had died several nights ago. The other had been struck down last spring. Beyond a doubt, this was what had ended the lives of Jake and Nat—striking at their bare feet, driving them in blind horror from the house, leaving on their skins only two tiny wounds which, days later, would be overlooked by the men finding their frightful corpses in the woods or the brush. This creature must have been here for months.
His deductions were interrupted by Spit. Tiring at last of worrying its broken enemy, or perhaps eager to begin eating the rat, the cat loosed its hold and, ceaselessly growling, stepped around and smelt at the gray-haired victim of the snake.
“Hey! Quit that!” Douglas snapped. “You fool cat, that rat’s poisoned! If you have the slightest scratch on your lips or in your mouth you’ll die! Let it alone!”
At the impact of his voice Spit leaped aside, spat at him, stood flame-eyed, lips writhing and claws unsheathed. So menacing was the appearance of the creature, so evident its readiness to battle for possession of that rat, that the man took a backward step. Claws and teeth both might be envenomed; even if they were not, he knew that an ordinary cat-bite sometimes results fatally. But he did not intend to let the cat commit suicide. True, the poison might not injure the animal’s stomach, but if it entered the blood——
He shoved the bare flame of his lamp straight at the snarling visage. It was the best move he could have made. Had he attempted to grasp the animal, or even to push it away with a foot, the maddened creature might have sprung at him. At that moment a mere man meant little to that wild brute. But before the fire-demon imprisoned in that lamp, before the searing blue-white tongue licking out at his face, even Spit’s savage heart quailed. Spitting furiously, he sprang back.
Inexorably the flame followed him. It pressed him back into the bedroom. Then the outer door was drawn open. The light retreated. Spit sneaked back into the main room—but the white-hot tongue was waiting for him. It slid forward once more. Suddenly it made a twisting swoop toward his mouth. That was too much. With a snarly squall of panic a tawny streak shot through the doorway into the night. Spit was gone.
The door bumped shut. The man straightened up, relaxed, chuckled shortly. Then he turned the light again on the feebly squirming reptile and the lifeless rat; studied them a moment more; looked at the clean pine monument of Nat Oaks glimmering yellowish in the background; pivoted on his heels and frowningly contemplated the bedroom where both Jake and Nat had met their doom. For some minutes he stood there, playing the light over every visible inch of the room, particularly along the floor. Suddenly he started as if a dazzling ray had darted through his mental fog.
“By thunder!” he muttered. “I’ll bet——”