He attempted to scale one of these almost perpendicular heights; but,
though strong and agile, he found it an Herculean undertaking. Often
he was supported merely by crumbling projections of the rock, and
sometimes he clung to roots and branches of trees, and hung almost
suspended in the air. The wood-pigeon came cleaving his whistling
flight by him, and the eagle screamed from the brow of the impending
cliff. As he was thus clambering, he was on the point of seizing hold
of a shrub to aid his ascent, when something rustled among the leaves,
and he saw a snake quivering along like lightning, almost from under
his hand. It coiled itself up immediately, in an attitude of defiance,
with flattened head, distended jaws, and quickly-vibrating tongue,
that played like a little flame about its mouth. Dolph's heart turned
faint within him, and he had well-nigh let go his hold, and tumbled
down the precipice. The serpent stood on the defensive but for an
instant; it was an instinctive movement of defence; and finding there
was no attack, it glided away into a cleft of the rock. Dolph's eye
followed with fearful intensity; and he saw at a glance that he was in
the vicinity of a nest of adders, that lay knotted, and writhing, and
hissing in the chasm.
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