Flowers hang on every side,—­flowers as strange and as gorgeous as Byzantine chalices; flowers narrow and fluted and transparent as long Venetian glasses; opaque flowers bulging and coloured with gold devices like Chinese vases, flowers striped with cinnamon and veined with azure; a million flower-cups and flower chalices, and in these as in censers strange and deadly perfumes are melting, and the heavy fumes descend upon the girl, and they mix with the polluting odour of the ancient sacrifices.  She sinks, her arms are raised like those of a victim; she sinks overcome, done to death or worse in some horrible asphyxiation.

And through the torrid twilight of the approaching storm the cry of the hyena is heard.  His claws are upon the crumbling tombs.

The suffocating girl utters a thin wail.  The vulture pauses, and is stationary on the white and desert skies.  She strives with her last strength to free herself from the thrall of the great lianas, and she falls into fresh meshes....  The claws are heard amid the ruins, there is a hirsute smell; she turns with terrified eyes to plead, but she meets only the dull liquorish eyes, and the breath of the obscene animal is on her face.

Then she finds herself in the pleasure grounds of Thornby Place.  There are the evergreen oaks, there is the rosary flaring all its wealth of red, purple, and white flowers, there is the park encircled by elms, there is the vista filled in with the line of the lofty downs.  For a moment she is surprised, and fails to understand.  Then she forgets the change of place in new sensations of terror.  For across the park something is coming, she knows not what; it will pass her by.  She watches a brown and yellow serpent, cubits high.  Cubits high.  It rears aloft its tawny hide, scenting its prey.  The great coiling body, the small head, small as a man’s hand, the black beadlike eyes shine out upon the intoxicating blue of the sky.  The narrow long head, the fixed black eyes are dull, inexorable desire, conscious of nothing beyond, and only dimly conscious of itself.  Will the snake pass by the hiding girl?  She rushes to meet it.  What folly!  She turns and flies.

She takes refuge in the rosary.  It follows her, gathering its immense body into horrible and hideous heights.  How will she save herself?  She will pluck roses, and build a wall between her and it.  She collects huge bouquets, armfuls of beautiful flowers, garlands and wreaths.  The flower-wall rises, and hoping to combat the fury of the beast with purity, she goes to where beautiful and snowy blossoms grow in clustering millions.  She gathers them in haste; her arms and hands are streaming with blood, but she pays no heed, and as the snake surmounts one barricade, she builds another.  But in vain.  The reptile leans over them all, and the sour dirty smell of the scaly hide befouls the odorous breath of the roses.  The long thin neck is upon her; she feels the horrid strength of the coils as they curl and slip about her, drawing her whole life into one knotted and loathsome embrace.  And all the while the roses fall in a red and white rain about her.  And through the ruin of the roses she escapes from the stench and the coils, and all the while the snake pursues her even into the fountain.  The waves and the snake close about her.