"When the man opened the door he saw three things: one was the dead
python, lying where he had left it; the second was a live python, its
comrade apparently, slowly crawling round it; the third a crushed, bloody
heap in the middle of the floor.
"He himself remembered nothing more until, weeks afterwards, he opened
his eyes in a darkened, unfamiliar place, but the native servant, before
he fled screaming from the house, saw his master fling himself upon the
living serpent and grasp it with his hands, and when, later on, others
burst into the room and caught him staggering in their arms, they found
the second python with its head torn off.
"That is the incident that changed the character of my man--if it be
changed," concluded Jephson. "He told it me one night as we sat on the
deck of the steamer, returning from Bombay. He did not spare himself. He
told me the story, much as I have told it to you, but in an even,
monotonous tone, free from emotion of any kind. I asked him, when he had
finished, how he could bear to recall it.
"'Recall it!' he replied, with a slight accent of surprise; 'it is always
with me.'"
CHAPTER VIII
One day we spoke of crime and criminals. We had discussed the
possibility of a novel without a villain, but had decided that it would
be uninteresting.
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