THEY THOUGHT ONLY OF THEIR FLIGHT
“There is a curious thing about a snake. It has a habit of slipping out of its skin, and squirming away, leaving the old one behind, looking quite like itself.
“Xyntli’s snakes were unusual in many ways; but in this they certainly did something very like the rest of their tribe. When they had gone down the mountains and filled up the hollows with their bodies, their fiery hearts seemed to die out of them where they lay. One might think they were asleep, or dead; but I believe it was only their cast-off skins they left behind, while the real snakes stole back into the mountain, to be ready when Xyntli wanted them again.”
“I believe it, too; that’s what they did,” said Pat.
“If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be there always, when she called,” agreed Phyllisy.
“It seems so to me,” said the Princess. Then she took up the story again: “At last Xyntli stopped her wild motion and looked down on her mountain.
“The snakes had done their work well this time. There were no hollows left, and no green thing but one slender spur of forest, like a finger pointing up the slope, and that was hardly worth noticing.
“The smoke was thin now, and blue. Xyntli stood, swaying softly on the mountain-top. Then she sank slowly, drawing her veil after her. Now she was nearly gone; now, only a gleam of her red hair flickered against the sky; now—she was quite gone—
“When—suddenly she shot up, straight, towering above the cone, and flung a long fold of her veil wide over the land; and from it fell a shower of fine powder, soft as snow, that filled all the cracks and crevices and covered the horrid bodies of the snakes, and choked every green thing left in its track.
“Then—as suddenly—Xyntli vanished! and in her hollow mountain, slept once more.”