The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 100: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE COBRA 81 be confined to the bedchamber, and that she herself would incur no danger, while in the dressing-room, of becoming its victim instead of her mistress. Such were the cold- blooded, fiendish, diabolical calculations which the vile Hindu woman weighed in her mind while pondering the fearful deed of iniquity that she contemplated. It was close upon ten o’clock when Sagoonah had com- pleted the wonted arrangements in the dressing-room and the bedchamber. She was careful to place in the dressing- room every article that her mistress might need in order that there should be no chance of requiring anything to be fetched from the bedchamber. The arrangements being completed, Sagoonah ascended to her own room, unlocked her box, and stood carefully back for a moment to convince herself that the deadly reptile had not by any means escaped from the leathern bag. Nor had it. Then Sagoonah acquired the further certainty that the strings of the bag were tight, and concealing it beneath the folds of her white drapery, she descended to Indora’s chamber. Approaching the bed she drew down the clothes, and with exceeding caution she relaxed the strings of the bag somewhat, keeping her eyes riveted with scrutinizing intentness upon the opening thus made. In about a minute the hideous reptile began to protrude its head, and just as the commencement of its neck was visible, Sagoonah grasped it with the forefinger and thumb of her right hand, — so quickly, so nicely, and with such admirable expertness that the snake had not time to plunge its fangs into her flesh. She now drew it completely out of the bag; again was her arm quickly encircled by its dark slimy folds, but she speedily disengaged the coils from that arm, and with one dexterous effort threw the serpent into the middle of the bed. It instantaneously sprang up to dart at her, but she commenced a low yet quick half-hum- ming, half-singing strain. The reptile was charmed, and its head gradually sank down amidst its coils. Then she covered it up with the bedclothes, and retreated toward the door of the dressing-room, but never once averting her eyes from the couch, lest the deadly serpent should be gliding after her. It did not make its appearance; she entered the dress- ing-room, and the door closed between herself and the chamber in which she had left the venomous cobra. Ascend- ing to her own room, she deposited the leathern bag in her CORnNICLOOKS (CO)