ground. Before the mouths of the holes were
little patches of sand and gravel, scratched up,
we supposed, from a long way below the sur-
face. Here and there, in the town, we came
on larger gravel patches, several yards away
from any hole. If the dogs had scratched the
sand up in excavating, how had they carried
it so far? It was on one of these gravel beds
that I met my adventure.

We were examining a big hole with two en-
trances. The burrow sloped into the ground
at a gentle angle, so that we could see where
the two corridors united, and the floor was
dusty from use, like a little highway over
which much travel went. I was walking back-
ward, in a crouching position, when I heard
Antonia scream. She was standing opposite
me, pointing behind me and shouting some-
thing in Bohemian. I whirled round, and
there, on one of those dry gravel beds, was the
biggest snake I had ever seen. He was sunning
himself, after the cold night, and he must have
been asleep when Antonia screamed. When I
turned he was lying in long loose waves, like a
letter _"W"._ He twitched and began to coil
slowly. He was not merely a big snake, I
thought -- he was a circus monstrosity. His

[[50]]

p049 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p050w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p051

v?