"One evening, riding home through a part of the jungle not far from his
bungalow, he heard a soft, low hiss close to his ear, and, looking up,
saw a python swing itself from the branch of a tree and make off through
the long grass. He had been out antelope-shooting, and his loaded rifle
hung by his stirrup. Springing from the frightened horse, he was just in
time to get a shot at the creature before it disappeared. He had hardly
expected, under the circumstances, to even hit it. By chance the bullet
struck it at the junction of the vertebrae with the head, and killed it
instantly. It was a well-marked specimen, and, except for the small
wound the bullet had made, quite uninjured. He picked it up, and hung it
across the saddle, intending to take it home and preserve it.
"Galloping along, glancing down every now and again at the huge, hideous
thing swaying and writhing in front of him almost as if still alive, a
brilliant idea occurred to him. He would use this dead reptile to cure
his wife of her fear of living ones. He would fix matters so that she
should see it, and think it was alive, and be terrified by it; then he
would show her that she had been frightened by a mere dead thing, and she
would feel ashamed of herself, and be healed of her folly. It was the
sort of idea that would occur to a fool.
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