E. F. Benson

“ Case got up and in the dark groped his way across the lobby out of which Oldham's bedroom opened, and feeling with his hand, immediately found the box on the ledge at the foot of his bed. Standing there, he lit a match, and his eye fell on the bed itself. It was covered with a dark blanket, and on the centre of it, coiled and sleeping, like a round pool of black water, lay a huge cobra. On the moment the match went out—it had barely been lit—and, closing the bedroom door, he went out again on to the veranda. ”

“ The arch of clear sky to the east had dwindled and become overcast, and the red moon showed but a faint blur of light behind the gathering clouds.
Case had used a solitary match to light his lamp, and did not know where, in his own bungalow, he might find a box. But he could get one for certain out of Oldham's bedroom, for he was a person of extremely orderly habits, and always kept one on a ledge just inside his bedroom door. ”

“ He was not conscious of thought; it seemed only that a vivid picture was spread before his mind—the picture of a dark-blanketed bed on which, like a round black pool, there lay the coiled and sleeping cobra. The door of that room was shut, and a man entering it would no longer find, as he had done, a match-box ready to his hand, close beside the door. ”

“ A similar animation had tingled through the insect world, and as Case passed across the couple of fields that lay between the mess-room and his bungalow, a swarm of evil flies dashed themselves against the glass of his lantern. Overhead, since sunset, the clouds had gathered densely again across the vault of the sky, but to the east an arch of clear and star-lit heavens was dove-coloured with the approaching moonrise. ”

“ It was far better that he should lull Oldham into an unsuspicious frame of mind; otherwise he might suspect, might he not, that something was prepared for him in his room? Others, subsequently, if they quarrelled, might guess that he himself had known what lay there ... but it was all dim and fantastic. Then the fancied cunning and caution of an unbalanced man who is at the same time ready to commit the most reckless violence took hold of him, and instantly he changed his tone. He must be quiet and normal; he must let things take their natural course, without aid or interference from himself. ”

“ I'll get you a glass and soda.”
He came out into the veranda again with these requisites. Oldham was stifling a prodigious yawn.
“I'm half dead with sleep. Probably I shall chuck myself on my bed just as I am, to save the trouble of undressing.”
Case felt his hand tremble as he put the glass down on the table.
“I know that feeling,” he said. “Sometimes, when one is very sleepy, the sight of a bed is altogether too much for one. I dare say I shall do the same. Help yourself to whisky while I open the soda for you.” ”

“ For a man who is so happy, I am awfully sorry; that is all I can say about it. She wished me to tell you, though, of course, I should have done so in any case.—Yours truly,
“Percy Oldham.”
Case read this through for the sixth or seventh time, then tore it into fragments, and again replenished his glass. It was barely six months ago that he had been engaged to this girl himself; then they had quarrelled, and the match had been broken off. But he found now that he had never ceased to hope that when he went up himself, later in the summer, to the hills, it would be renewed again. ”

“ It was not in Oldham's genial nature to resist such an appeal, and he responded warmly.
“I think that is jolly good of you,” he said, “and, frankly, I hate myself when I think of you. But, somehow, it isn't a man's fault when he falls in love. ”

“ He heard him shuffle his feet along the floor in the manner of a man feeling his way in the dark, and knew that he was drawing near to the closed bedroom door and the black interior. Oldham had said that he was very tired, that he was inclined just to throw himself on the bed and sleep, and the absence of matches and the added inconvenience of undressing in the dark would further predispose him to this. ”