"Of course, I wasn't swallering that, but when I told my traveller the sweat gathered in big drops on his forehead, and the old hunted look came into his face. `You don't believe this silly yarn?' says I, placing my hand on his shoulder. `Believe it, man!' he said. `Good heavens! that snake is after me.' `After you,' says I. `Yes,' says he, making an effort to swallow something. `It has chased me up and down over a thousand miles for two months.' `Nonsense!' I said; `you're nervous and fanciful.' `Listen,' he said. `Two months ago I was hunting in the Zulu country, and one day, ten miles away from my camp, I shot a mamba. I took the body back with me to skin it; but when the two blacks I had with me saw it, they cried out to me to take it away, or the mamba's mate would come in the night. I left them sleeping by the fire, and the next morning they were still sleeping--ay, they were sleeping the last sleep, for the mamba had been in the night.' "As I looked at them, with the blood in me like water, I heard a heavy breathing, and saw my horse on the ground, his eyes glazed and his nostrils fighting for breath, while, resting on his body, was the awful head of a mamba, his eyes fixed on mine, and his forked tongue darting in and out. I fired at him with the rifle barrel, but clean missed in my flurry; then I ran until my courage came back. I found that I had left the powder behind, and slowly turned back. I had not gone a hundred paces when I met him on my track, slipping like a black streak through the grass, and I thought of nothing then but escape. After a time I met a party of Zulus, but when I asked for their assistance, they fled with loud cries of alarm, and at a Zulu kraal, where I stopped to ask for thick milk, they drove me out when they learnt why it was I fled. That night as I slept that snake coiled by my side. "`What!' "`Yes; he could have struck me then, but he preferred to have full vengeance. I woke at the flicker of his tongue on my cheek, thinking it was a fly--a fly! good Lord! and my hand fell upon his cold, sinewy folds, and his head was resting on my shoulder. Ever since he has been after me, with a deadly hate that is slowly driving me mad. Sometimes he disappears, but I never escape from the glint of his unwinking eyes, and one day he will strike, unless--unless--' "`Well?' said I, looking at his drawn face. "`Unless,' he said, `I forestall him.' "`No my lad,' said I, `for that would be a sin, and when you are stronger this dream of yours will go.' "He looked so fallen in, so weak, all of a sudden, that I took him for a walk to the river, and the rush of the waters seemed to comfort him. He sat on a big boulder looking across, and the whiteness presently went from his cheeks. "`I've got an idea,' he said, `if I could reach the other side I'd be all right again.'