I let my eyelids slide down, as slowly as I could, so that I needn't even blink, and lay in darkness while bile-tinged gorge rose in my throat and my stomach churned in panic. I must not move, I told myself. No stirring, not a single finger twitched, not a tremor in the body.

The hardest part of it was to keep my eyes closed, but I knew I must. Even so much as the sudden flicking of an eyelid might cause the snake to strike.

My body screamed at me—every muscle fiber, every nerve, all my prickling skin screamed to get away. But I held the body still—I, the mind, the brain, the thinking. And the thought crept in unbidden that this was the first tune in my life that the brain and body had been so utterly at odds.

My skin seemed to crawl beneath the mincing impact of a million unclean feet. My digestive tract revolted, knotting and twisting. My heart was beating so hard that the pressure of the blood running in my veins made me feel choked and bloated.

And still the weight hung there upon my chest. I tried to calculate the attitude of the snake by the pattern of its weight upon my chest. Had it changed position? Had something triggered that snakish brain into aggressive action, was it even now pulling its body up and back into the S-curve that was preliminary to a strike? Or was it lowering its raised head, preparatory to moving on, satisfied that I was no threat?

If only I could open my eyes and know! It seemed more than flesh could bear not to see the danger (if there should be danger) and, recognizing it, brace one's self against it.

But I kept my eyes closed—not tight shut, not squeezed tight, but closed as naturally as I could, for there was no way to know whether the movement of the facial muscles involved in the squeezing of the eyes tight shut might be enough to alarm the snake.

I found myself trying to breathe as shallowly as I could, for breathing was movement—although I told myself that by now the snake must have become accustomed to the rhythm of my breathing.