In an instant Joe had leaped to the floor, 215 raining blows upon the head and floundering coils, until at last the reptile straightened out and lay still.
“What’s the matter?” cried Jim, awakened by the tumult and jumping out of bed.
He turned pale as he saw the snake stretched out on the floor and Joe who, now that the awful strain was over, was leaning against the wall as limp as a rag.
Jim turned on the light and they viewed the monster, standing at a respectful distance from the head.
“He seems dead enough, but you can never be sure of a snake,” said Joe, after in a few hurried words he had told of his experience. “Suppose, Jim, you get that Malay’s knife out of my trunk and we’ll make certain.”
Jim brought the kriss, which Joe had kept as a memento of his struggle with the maniac, and with one stroke severed the cobra’s head from his body.
“That knife never did a better bit of work,” he commented as he washed it off. “Now let’s get this thing out of the window and clear up the mess.”
They got through the repugnant work as soon as possible and then made a careful search of the room.
“That fellow may have had a mate,” remarked 216 Joe, “and one experience of this kind is enough for a lifetime. I’ve always felt a little doubtful about those stories of people whose hair turned gray in a single night, but it’s easy enough to believe it now.”
“We’ll close the window too,” said Jim, suiting the action to the word and letting the upper sash down only for an inch or two. “That’s the way that fellow must have crawled in. It’s pretty hot in here but I’d rather die of heat than snake bites.”