As you can imagine, this state of things was bad for his health, and when one day he ran a rusty nail into the palm of his left hand the wound festered, and the hand and the whole of his arm swelled tremendously. He was so ill that Nicholson, the staff surgeon of the _Intrepid_, determined to give him chloroform, and make deep cuts into both hand and arm. The snake, of course, would have to be exposed during the operation, and Mr. Scarlett was so desperately anxious that no one else should know anything about it that he only consented when Nicholson promised (I had told him about it) to come across to the _Bunder Abbas_, and, if Popple Opstein and I would stand by and give him a hand, do it there. He came that very evening, when the great heat of the day was over, and we (with Percy terrified and sad) cleared a space on the little upper deck, just outside the cabin, for the operation. Having kicked Percy down the steps and screened the deck from observation, Nicholson began. It is not necessary to go into all the details, but when Mr. Scarlett, lying on the deck, was thoroughly insensible, we unwound the bandage and found the beastly snake almost sunk in a deep groove of the mottled, swollen skin, clinging ever so tightly. I noticed Nicholson run his finger along it until he came to the head, when he tried to pass one finger under the jaw, but my nerves were very much on the stretch. I saw him pick up a knife, and, not being used to such things, turned away my head. It was not till Mr. Scarlett had given one or two sudden, half-conscious moans that I turned round again. There were the deep cuts in the arm and hand, but—I almost started out of my skin—the snake had disappeared, and only the deep groove round the arm remained, the scale marks showing how tightly the snake must have buried itself. Nicholson quietly pointed to a corner of the deck close to the funnel, and there, sparkling in a patch of sunlight coming under the edge of the awning, was the bracelet—writhing, coiling, and uncoiling, drawing back, and striking with its head. Popple Opstein’s face was blue, his mouth wide open, his eyes staring at it, his great red hands shaking violently. Nicholson went on with his work. "Good God!" I at last managed to gasp. "Did it bite him or you?" Nicholson did not answer. Mr. Scarlett was recovering consciousness now, and he was working very rapidly. Popple Opstein and I had to fly round and do this and that as he bade us. There was no time to ask questions or answer them. At last Nicholson, starting to bandage the arm, asked for a piece of rope—a couple of feet of signal halyard. "Now a needle and thread," he called, and, when I fetched them, sewed the bandage very securely. Not till then had I time to look at the snake again. It was now lying perfectly still, coiled closely like a watch-spring, the flat head pressed over the coils and the light flickering in its green opal eyes and playing on the enamelled scales.