Marsillus would fain have denied this, but his voice stuck in his parched throat.
“Your slaves one day found a huge snake, a venomous monster, which they at once slew. It was a female, and would have left twenty little ones to lament her loss if you had not considerately ordered the destruction of the whole family. The father alone escaped. Once in possession of this little stock of poison, you asked yourself how you could best dispose of it, and being neither selfish nor thoughtless—you see, I do you the fullest justice—you were not long in remembering me. Your creatures took the twenty young snakes and scattered them from their nest to my room, where they concealed the mother’s body under my bed. As soon as night came, the male snake traced from corpse to corpse the path you had so obligingly mapped out for him, and, full of fury, arrived almost at the bed where I was sleeping. I will spare you the recital of what followed, for it would wring your heart. All I have to observe is, that on my making my appearance before you next day, you knitted your brows; you were even put out when I laid at your feet the two serpents, one only of which owed its destruction to me. It was fortunate for you that on the previous night I had struck one of your slaves, for it was at once decided that he had attempted to revenge himself on me, and, in your anxiety to see me righted, you sliced his head off before he had time to utter a word in defence.”
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