Having never killed a tiger I knew nothing of his habits, beyond the fact that he was almost always sure to return to his “kill,” if undisturbed, on the second night, and even on the third, if there still remained undevoured portions of his victim sufficient for a meal. I could fancy this brute treading silently up to the ghastly remains; I could picture him, bloody of muzzle, fierce-eyed, alert and terrible, as he dined in his dread loneliness. How I wished that a snake, more silent than himself, might glide upon him and strike him deep with its venomous fangs! A snake!—Why a snake to be sure! It suggested just the plan! I had no weapon reliably stout enough to give him a mortal wound, but I could, perhaps, bury a poisoned arrow in his blood—a shaft that need but scratch to do its deadly work. The snake I had killed the day before might still be fresh enough to furnish the fatal juice, and then—if I could find the mangled body in the jungle, perhaps—perhaps— I was more excited and nervous now than before. Three times I was on the point of crying quits. Once I was nerved anew by the contemplation of the lake and our settlement, which meant that I was working out a plan of escape, already nicely started. Again, I was hardened to the task by the thought that, surrounded as I was in this unknown region, with death so easy on every hand, I was childish to wish to avoid this one particular danger, perhaps only to plunge into others far more awful. The third time I was steeled by observing the sneering smile on the face of Grin, which seemed to mock my show of manhood. This was the thing which made me put all doubt and hesitation away. In the late afternoon, having selected five of the straightest and truest of the arrows tipped with flint, and having seen that the bow-string was stout and reliable, I walked off boldly, alone, and went to where the hooded snake lay crushed beneath the rock. Until I was out of sight the Links watched me, narrowly, all of them standing together on the hill. The body of the snake was where I had left it, the tail partially eaten by something, which must have been desperately hungry. Cutting off the head I pried open the jaws with a stick and my knife, finding the poison-glands of great size. The venom flowed thickly out when I tore the sacks open with the point of an arrow, and although the whole revolting operation made me nearly ill, I fairly bathed the flints in the viscid substance. Holding the arrows carefully from me, to let them dry, I concealed the serpent’s head beneath a rock, for I did not wish the Links to know what I had done, and so to learn the use of so deadly a creature.