Quotation from: The Secret Agent

Written by: Joseph Conrad

"Help, Tom! Save me. I won't be hanged!"

He rushed forward, groping for her mouth with a silencing hand, and the
shriek died out. But in his rush he had knocked her over. He felt her
now clinging round his legs, and his terror reached its culminating
point, became a sort of intoxication, entertained delusions, acquired the
characteristics of delirium tremens. He positively saw snakes now. He
saw the woman twined round him like a snake, not to be shaken off. She
was not deadly. She was death itself--the companion of life.