"she sprang forward and stood still in front of the reptile as if she had been turned to stone. the beast stopped too, but its tail and claws still moved about. i believe animals are incapable of feeling supernatural fright if i have been rightly informed, but at this moment there appeared to me to be something more than ordinary about norma’s terror, as though it must be supernatural; and as though she felt, just as i did myself, that this reptile was connected with some mysterious secret, some fatal omen.