Smith collapsed on the floor at my feet.
“Examine the one in the rack, Petrie,” he whispered, almost inaudibly, “but do not touch it. It may not be yet....”
I propped him up against the foot of the stairs, and as the constable began knocking violently at the street door, crossed to the rack and lifted out the replica of the cane which I held in my hand.
A faint cry from Smith—and as if it had been a leprous thing, I dropped the cane instantly.
“Merciful God!” I groaned.
Although, in every other particular, it corresponded with that which I held—which I had taken from the dacoit—which he had come to substitute for the cane now lying upon the floor—in one dreadful particular it differed.
Up to the snake’s head it was an accurate copy; but the head lived!
Either from pain, fear or starvation, the thing confined in the hollow tube of this awful duplicate was become torpid. Otherwise, no power on earth could have saved me from the fate of Abel Slattin; for the creature was an Australian death-adder.