Chapter 33

Before the rush of frantic people had fallen over us, I struck his venomous face. With both fists, blow on blow. Blood came from his damned lips. What madness had seized him I don’t know. Likely it was memory surging back through dead life--the venom of the rattler, hate undying. But of that, who can say? A strange thing is memory. Yet I knew for sure that to him, the mad sculptor, born in that hut in the hot savannahs, had passed the soul of the dying rattlesnake. Hands dragged me back from him. I shouted and tore…