Demo quickly stood up, looked toward the pool of water. And saw
Regulus rising, the brown drops shedding from his slick skin.
Wide-eyed Demo held the spear level, pointed toward the strange
apparition.
Regulus regarded the spear point with concern, hissed mightily.
With consternation he observed Demo, hissed once more.
"Most unusual," he commented, "I must be losing my touch."
He slithered over the sand, undulating from side to side in his progress. He approached Demo, but kept a distance beyond the spearlength. With slow sinuous motion he glided around the boy.
"Hisss! Hissssss!" he breathed, watched nonplused at the lack of response. "You seem not to understand, my boy. Have I failed in some manner to properly enunciate the sound? Perhaps my lungs are waterlogged! Know you not that none survive who hear the hiss of Regulus? How dare you continue to stand there, impervious. Bad mannered, to say the least."
He grumbled, still continued his slow and torturous encirclement of his intended prey.
"You must be Regulus," Demo commented, in part to himself. "I would hope, though my ears are so confoundedly stopped up I can't hear you, that you can hear me. I'm sent by Zeus to invite you to come live on Mount Olympus. No nasty sand storms - and absolutely no floods! Look at you, dripping and with wet sand sticking to your every scale! You could slither comfortably through the smooth green grass, dance to the flute, and sip nectar in sun."
Though Demo was hardly a salesman he was suddenly aided by the elements. A dark cloud was forming above, accompanied by thunder, lightning, wind - and sudden rainfall.
Regulus wriggled from side to side, glissaded down one dune, up another. But there was no place to hide. Grumpily he returned to a spot before Demo, nodded his head in agreement. Whatever Olympus had to offer, it would be an improvement.
Hardly had the contract been made than Demo found himself once more in Zeus' presence, accompanied by the sinuous serpent.