And his dead child clutching its mother’s clothes
As in fright; and there, as he gazed, arose,
From her breast, where ’twas resting, the gleaming head
Of the terrible dukite, as if it said,
“I’ve had vengeance, my foe! you took all I had!”
And so had the snake: David Sloane was mad!
I rode to his hut just by chance that night,
And there[1221] on the threshold the clear moonlight
Showed the two snakes dead. I pushed in[1222] the door;
The dead were stretched[1223] on the moonlit floor;