"As I knelt, Jassim must have stooped down and picked up the gold snake, for he suddenly flicked it round my arm, saying in a deep guttural voice: ’Blessed is the giver of water—above all men. Allah, the great, the compassionate, gave water to those that burned in Hell, even as thou gavest! Thy reward shall be great; only become a true believer, for this is the key of Paradise.’ "I jumped to my feet, half-dazed, and dared not touch the thing as it clung to me, snuggling tightly round my arm. "The woman was dead. I ran to the sea; the bluejacket’s body was moving gently as the tiny waves rolled in. I knew that he was dead, and I turned to implore Jassim to take it off if he knew how to do so without killing me. "As I turned, the lower edge of the sun touched the top of those awful mountains, and Jassim, crouching on his prayer carpet, a little patch of red on the sloping white beach, with the dead woman in front of him, suddenly raised himself to his knees, held wide his hands, and called: ’Allah ho Akhbar’, as though summoning the faithful to prayer and his contemptible followers back to him. "Then he prostrated himself, and, raising himself again, commenced: ’Bismillahi! Rahmanni! Raheem!’ whilst I stood awed as he recited the prayer, till the upper rim of the sun disappeared, and those dark shadows came again down the sides of the mountains and along the waste of sands, rushing like evil spirits towards us.... "The first lieutenant was at my side shaking me. He had his hand on the snake, as if to take it. "’What the devil do you mean by looting?’ he said; but I gave a shriek, and sprang away, striking up his hand. "As I retreated backwards, step by step, I told him what had happened. He did not believe me; he thought me mad—that I had a ’touch of the sun’. But he let me be, presently, and I covered that thing up with the sleeve of my flannel as best I could—and found myself back again on board the _Pigeon_. Perhaps I was mad, for I could never remember how I did get aboard, and I was on the sick list for many days, lying in a cot, covering the snake with my free hand, and moaning for people to let it be—so they told me afterwards." 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."