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Words: 167327 in 68 pages
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hurl it. The young girl enticed by the floating leaves which the sun struck so brightly around the serpent, had her foot poised to spring forward.
"Lina!" cried Ralph, in a low voice, "Lina!"
"In one moment," cried the girl, laughing wilfully; "wait till I get those leaves drifting across the rock there."
The gipsy hat had fallen on one side; her hands were full of red leaves, and she was smiling saucily. This unconsciousness of danger was horrible. The young man shrunk and quivered through all his frame.
"Lina, step aside--to the right--dear Lina, I entreat, I insist!"
His voice was deep and husky, scarcely more than a whisper, and yet full of command.
Lina looked back, and her smiling lips grew white with astonishment. Ralph stood above her pale as marble; his hand grasping the rock was uplifted, his fierce, distended eyes looked beyond her. Wild with nameless dread the young girl stepped backward, following his glance with her eyes. Her breath was checked--she could not scream. The glittering eyes of the rattlesnake, though turned upon another, held her motionless. A prickly sensation pierced her lips through and through, as the snake loosened his coils and changed his position so abruptly, that his back glittered in the sunshine, like a mass of jewels rapidly disturbed, making her blind and dizzy with the poisonous glow. Still she moved backward like a statue recoiling from its base.
"Now," whispered Ben, "now give it to him."
A crash--a spring--and like a fiery lance the rattlesnake shot by her, striking her garments as he went, and, falling short of his enemy, coiled himself for a new spring.
Ralph's hand was uplifted as the fragment of rock had left it; and there, within a few feet, lay the rattlesnake making ready for a second spring, and quivering through all its folds.
She uttered a wild cry, stooped quick as lightning, seized a fragment of rock,--dashed it with both hands upon the rattlesnake, and, rushing by, threw herself before Ralph. Her eyes turned with horror upon the work she had done.
"Oh, have mercy! have mercy! he is alive yet!" she shrieked, as writhing and convulsed, the rattlesnake drew his glittering folds out from beneath the stone, and wound himself up, coil after coil, more venomous than ever.
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