"It looks like
the real thing--but these fellows are mighty clever. Do you see the
other victim? There's no fake about it!"
"I see no one else," I said, after a vain scrutiny.
"Look carefully on the other side of the sphere. Don't you see
something there?"
My eyes were smarting under the strain, and for a moment longer I saw
nothing; then a strange, grey shape detached itself from the
blackness. It was an ugly and repulsive shape, slender below, but
swelling hideously at the top, and as I stared at it, it seemed to me
that it returned my stare with malignant eyes screened by a pair of
white-rimmed glasses. Then, with a sensation of dizziness, I saw that
the shape was swaying gently back and forth, in a sort of rhythm. And
then, quite suddenly, I saw what it was, and a chill of horror
quivered up my back.
It was a cobra.
To and fro it swung, to and fro, its staring eyes fixed upon the
sphere, its spectacled hood hideously distended.
The very soul within me trembled as I gazed at those unwinking eyes.
What did they see in the sphere? What was passing in that inscrutable
brain? Could it, too, reconstruct the past, read the mysteries of the
future .
Pages:
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80