His chin was cocked upward and his eyes were fixed in a dreadful, rigid stare at the corner of the ceiling.

Round his brow he had a peculiar yellow band, with brownish speckles, which seemed to be bound tightly round his head.

As we entered he made neither sound nor motion.
"The band! the speckled band!" whispered Holmes.
I took a step forward.

In an instant his strange headgear began to move, and there reared itself from among his hair the squat diamond-shaped head and puffed neck of a loathsome serpent.
"It is a swamp adder!" cried Holmes; "the deadliest snake in India.

He has died within ten seconds of being bitten.