i didn't take a train next morning. somehow, i'd an idea—crazy as it seemed—that my promise to myself and the sudden, inexplicable appearance of the snake beside my foot were related in some way. just after luncheon i thought i'd put the theory to a test.
"'well,' i said aloud, 'i guess i might as well start packing. don't want to let the sun go down and find me here——'
"my theory was right. i hadn't finished speaking when i heard the warning hiss, and there, poised ready for the stroke, the snake was coiled before the door. and it was no phantom, either, no figment of an overwrought imagination. it lay upon a rug the hotel management had placed before the door to take the wear of constant passage from the carpet, and i could see the high pile of the rug crushed down beneath its weight. it was flesh and scales—and fangs!—and it coiled and threatened me in my twelfth-floor room in the bright sunlight of the afternoon.
"little chills of terror chased each other up my back, and i could feel the short hairs on my neck grow stiff and scratch against my collar, but i kept myself in hand. pretending to ignore the loathsome thing, i flung myself upon the bed.
"'oh, well,' i said aloud, 'there really isn't any need of hurrying. i promised julie that i'd come to her tonight, and i mustn't disappoint her." half a minute later i roused myself upon my elbow and glanced toward the door. the snake was gone.
"'here's a letter for you, mr. minton,' said the desk clerk as i paused to leave my key. the note was on gray paper edged with silver-gilt, and very highly scented. the penmanship was tiny, stilted and ill-formed, as though the author were unused to writing, but i could make it out:
adoré
meet me in st. denis cemetery at sunset
à vous de coeur pour l'éternité
julie
"i stuffed the note back in my pocket. the more i thought about the whole affair the less i liked it. the flirtation had begun harmlessly enough, and julie was as lovely and appealing as a figure in a fairy-tale, but there are unpleasant aspects to most fairy-tales, and this was no exception. that scene last night when she had seemed to argue with a full-grown cottonmouth, and the mysterious appearance of the snake whenever i spoke of breaking my promise to go back to her—there was something too much like black magic in it. now she addressed me as her adored and signed herself for eternity; finally named a graveyard as our rendezvous. things had become a little bit too thick.
"i was standing at the corner of canal and baronne streets, and crowds of office workers and late shoppers elbowed past me. 'i'll be damned if i'll meet her in a cemetery, or anywhere else,' i muttered. 'i've had enough of all this nonsense——'
"a woman's shrill scream, echoed by a man's hoarse shout of terror, interrupted me. on the marble pavement of canal street, with half a thousand people bustling by, lay coiled a three-foot water moccasin. here was proof. i'd seen it twice in my room at the hotel, but i'd been alone each time. some form of weird hypnosis might have made me think i saw it, but the screaming woman and the shouting man, these panic-stricken people in canal street, couldn't all be victims of a spell which had been cast on me. 'all right, i'll go,' i almost shouted, and instantly, as though it been but a puff of smoke, the snake was gone, the half-fainting woman and a crowd of curious bystanders asking what was wrong left to prove i had not been the victim of some strange delusion.
