SAVED BY A MONGOOSE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13583, 12 September 1908, Page 2 (Supplement)

SAVED BY A MONGOOSE.

A STORY OF A HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE. The incident about to be related tells of a sudden appearance of death and of a strange deliverance. It happened in India, and was told the writer by one who knew the hero of it. First must be introduced the one whom the story mainly concerns. He was at the time employed in an official capacity connected with the railway, and was living in an out-of-the-way station, in a part well known to bo infested with snakes. One night the official, waking from his sleep, became conscious that he had been the victim of a nightmare. In his dreams is seemed to him that a great weight had been laid on his body. Every time he breathed he felt it pressing on his chest, until bit by bit he awakened, to discover that he was lying on hie back. ' The conviction that he had suffered from a nightmare was still on his mind, and he idly turned his eyes around his room, now faintly illuminated in the early morning light. Then his thoughts turned to the thing that had oppressed him in his dreams. Consciousness had not removed it. At every breath he felt that he was raising some mysterious and heavy object. He stretched out •his hand and encountered an icy coldness; at the same time an angry hies fell on his ears, and he drew hie hand quickly. Scarcely two feet from his eyes he saw the hooded, brown and yellow striped head of a cobra. He felt the bead-like eves pierce him through and through. His mind was clear, but there was something in that fierce gaze that turned his body, as it were, to stone. A minute passed, and then the cobra slowly sank down into coils. With this respite hope revived in the man. Should he wait. until the reptile had fallen asleep and then make a bold dash to escape? Half an hour passed, at least, so he judged by the slowly increasing daylight in the room. The official moved slightly. A responsive movement from the weight, that now seemed to have increased a hundredfold, warned him that the cobra was yet awake. Then an idea crept into the man's mind. He began to whistle softly. The snake stirred slightly, but soon subsided, soothed, evidently, by the sound. Another half-hour passed. Still the man whistled, his eyes turned anxiously towards the open door of his bedroom. A slight scraping noise fell on the man's ears. In the doorway stood a little grey animal, half ferret.," cat in appearance. The little mongoose that he had turned to respond to his call like a dog had come to save his life. In a moment the mongoose had seen the snake, and in another moment it had sprung on to the bed and poized the reptile by the back of the neck. The straggle was "brief, and, with the feeling of a man who has just received a new lease of life, the. official leapt from his bed and snatched the little mongoose in his aims.