d backing away with a sigh of relief.

"Feel better, Tom?" said the middy, with mock seriousness, as they stood
out in the full light of day again.

"Ah, you're a-laughing at me, sir," said the big sailor, shaking his
head. "I know, sir, though you're a-pretending to look as serious as a
judge."

"Enough to make me look serious, Tom. But are you sure that any of the
restless ones didn't slip down after you before you shut the door?"

"Eh? What, sir?" whispered the man hurriedly.

"You don't think as--" He looked behind and round about him, before
continuing. "Why, of course I am, sir. You're a-making fun of a
fellow, sir. But if you'd been up yonder and heered 'em--"

"I should have poked about with the barrel of my musket and found that
the rustling was made by birds or rats."

"Nay, sir," said the man confidently, "'twarn't neither o' they things.
If it had been they'd ha' skilly wiggled away at once. And besides,
sir, they wouldn't ha' made a man feel so 'orrid squirmy like. I felt
all of a shudder; that's what made me know that they were something as
didn't ought to be."

"Snakes, perhaps, Tom."

The man started, stared, snatched off his straw hat, and gave his head a
vicious rub, before having another good look back at the thatch-roofed
summer-house of a place.

"Say, Mr Murray, sir," he said at last, "did you say snakes?"

"Yes, Tom; perhaps poisonous ones."

The man gave his head another rub, and then ejaculated in a strange
long-drawn way the one word--

"Well!"

"I've read that in places like this they creep in under the flooring,
and then make their way up the holes and into the thatch after the birds
or rats upon which they live."

"Do they now, sir?" said the man excitedly.

"Yes, and some of them are horribly poisonous; so you must take care how
you deal with them."

"Poisonous, sir?" continued Tom. "Them sort as if they bite a man it's
all over with him and the doctor arn't able to save his life?"

"Yes, Tom," continued Murray; "in one of these islands particularly the
people call the serpent the _fer de lance_, a bite from which is very
often fatal."

"Kills a man, sir?"

"I believe so."

"Then I arn't surprised at them calling it so, sir. Nothing could be
too bad for it. That's it, sir, and now I arn't a bit surprised at my
feeling as I did, sir. I wondered what made me come so all-overish like
and fancy there was something about as oughtn't to be. I arn't a chap