Terrifying Experience With a Deadly Lancehead.
    The Paris Eclair tells a blood curdling serpent story, the scene of which was the island of Martinque and the dramatis personne Sergent Legrand and Private Durand and the snake a deadly lancehead.
    The soldier had been punished with a night in the cells for some trivial offense, but as the night was very hot the sergeant had left the door open. In the morning at 5 o’clock Legrand went to wake his prisoner and, to his horror, beheld a lancehead snake coiled up and fast asleep on the man’s breast.
    The sergeant did not lose his presence of mind. He stole noiselessly away, ran to the guard room and, followed by all the men on duty, returned to the cell with a bowl of milk and a tin whistle. Placing the bowl of milk at the entrance to the cell, the sergeant began to play the “Blue Danube.” It is needless to remark that the weakness of the lancehead is milk and music. The serpent, which was a six foot specimen, awoke, glided from the soldier’s body toward the bowl, but it had no sooner buried its head in its beloved drink than ten cudgels descended on it with terrific force, killing it outright.
    The soldier Durand, who was in a swoon, was taken to hospital, where he lay for many days on the verge of madness. He finally recovered and related his horrible experience-how he had awoke in the middle of the night as the serpent was coiling itself on his bare breast and how he had lain there in agony for hours, not daring to move a muscle.
    Durand was sent back to France as soon as he had sufficiently recovered. The only trace of his horrible experience, adds the Eclair, is that his hair is now snow white.
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