“Tell us how you came to seize the dangerous beast.”
“I took it for a lizard,” said the lad, who was nearly himself again, and then he related the whole of the circumstances.
“Hah! An easy mistake to make,” said Yussuf loosening his grasp. “Now, effendi, keep tight hold and raise your hand high like this; now, quick as lightning, dash the head down upon that stone.”
Lawrence obeyed, and the asp’s head fell with a dull pat, moved slightly, and the jaws slowly opened, and remained gaping.
“Let me look at your hand, Lawrence,” cried Mr Preston excitedly.
“Be not alarmed, excellency,” said Yussuf respectfully, his commanding authoritative manner gone. “If the young effendi had been bitten he would not look and speak like this.”
“He is quite right,” said Mr Burne, who was looking very pale, and who had been watching anxiously all through this scene. “But was it a poisonous snake?”
“One of the worst we have, effendi,” said Yussuf, stooping to pick up the broad flat head of the reptile, and showing all in turn that two keen little fangs were there in the front, looking exactly like a couple of points of glass.
“Yes,” said the professor, “as far as I understand natural history, these are poison fangs. Bury the dangerous little thing, or crush it into the earth, Yussuf.”
The guide took a stone and turned it over—a great fragment, weighing probably a hundred pounds—and then all started away, for there was an asp curled up beneath, ready to raise its head menacingly, but only to be crushed down again as Yussuf let the stone fall.