THE COBRA AND THE MOUSE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1689, 17 October 1887, Page 3

THE COBRA AND THE MOUSE.

. » . 1 was visiting at a friend's house m Galoutta, Bays Mr Koane, m his • Three Years of a Wanderer's Lifo,' and was on this evening sitting at dinner alone. The table had been some time wuiting for the host, and I had at last received a note that he was not cominp home, so I eat down alone. I had finished dinner, and was Btill lingering at the table, when a little mouse ran up on the top of a bowl j with a sort of basket work cover on it, 1 should not have thought that of itself very singular, for the ' tribes on our f ron [tier 1 rrade most unexpected incursions. Bat when he did get poiched on the cover of the little bow), the little follow rose upon his hied legs, with his hinds before him, and began to entertain me wiih the funniest little mouse song you cm imagine. 'Chit-chit, cheep cheep cb it/ he whistled, and kept it up before me m a most unembarrassed and so f-poasepsod little way. I mu6t have been a trying audience, for I leaned back m my chair and roared with Inughter. Ag I looked at the littlo performer I gradually became aware ©f a ehadow, a something strange, gliding out from behind a dish toward the mouse. Silently and slowly it n eared the mo.use ; m another mtuute a beady snake's eye glittered m the lamp light. My hand atole softly for the oarving Vnife. Tho snake reared his head level with the mouse, and the poor little fellow'B song, whfch had never ceaßed, became piercingly Bhrlll, though he sat up rigidly erect and motlonloee. The head of the snake drew back a little to strike : oat flashed the carving kt»ife. The Bpell was broken instantly, for the monse drepped and scampered. The snake was wounded, for there were spotß of blood, oo the tableoloth, and It was writhing iboub among the dißhes and plates. I could not make a bold stroke at any part o f it for fear of breaking the crockery, and whenever I made a dig I wtth the point it was like pricking the garter. I would not have believed, until I had seen It, how much of himself a snake can stow away under the edge of a plate. At last 1 saw the end of his tail projecting out from under a dish A snake held by the tall and Bwang rapidly round cannot torn back and bite. I grubbed the tail with my left thumb and finger, and drew him out until I judged the middle of hia body to bo under the knife, then I came down and cat bin} In two. He was another oobra — a IWtle one about two feet long, bat quite long enough to " gravel" a man.