The gunner stopped talking, breathed heavily, and wiped his forehead.
He began speaking in his ordinary composed way:
"Since then, thirteen years ago—aye, thirteen years it is next June—an unlucky year—that thing has coiled round my arm and never left it."
My chum's eye had been gradually starting more and more out of his head.
Now he gasped out:
"Never! Do you really mean it?"
"No, never," Mr. Scarlett groaned.
"But, man, a pair of long pincers seizing the head and neck and sliding a sleeve of thin tin or something like that underneath—next your skin—why, there are heaps of ways you could get it off—safe ways—if you really wanted to do so."
"Don't you think I've been tempted, sir; dozens of different ways have been suggested. All seemed safe, but there was just the chance that the thing would strike somewhere—and—and—I'd seen those two die, and put off trying for another day, till now I'm almost used to it.
"Look," the gunner said, pulling up his shirt sleeve and holding out his arm so that the moonlight showed the snake. "Watch its head!" and he very softly began to push one finger underneath a coil. As he did so, the head began to raise itself from his skin, and a tiny dark line, not visible before, showed across the end where the mouth was.