h all the heaviest furniture in the room. With a feeling of
perfect security, he complacently regarded his handiwork, and then,
sitting on the edge of the bed, began to undress. He turned the lamp
down a little, and reloading the empty chambers of his revolver, placed
it by the side of the lamp on the drawers. Then, as he turned back the
clothes, he fancied that something moved beneath them. As he paused, it
dropped lightly from the other side of the bed to the floor.

At first he sat, with knitted brows, trying to see what it was. He had
only had a glimpse of it, but he certainly had an idea that it was
alive. A rat perhaps. He got off the bed again with an oath, and, taking
the lamp in his hand, peered cautiously about the floor. Twice he walked
round the room in this fashion. Then he stooped down, and, raising the
dirty bed hangings, peered beneath.

He almost touched the wicked little head of the brown man's devil, and
with a stifled cry, sprang hastily backward. The lamp shattered against
the corner of the drawers, and, falling in a shower of broken glass and
oil about his stockinged feet, left him in darkness. He threw the
fragment of glass stand which remained in his hand from him, and, quick
as thought, gained the bed again, and crouched there, breathing heavily.

He tried to think where he had put the matches, and remembered there
were some on the widow-sill. The room was so dark that he could not see
the foot of the bed, and in his fatuity he had barricaded himself in the
room with the loathsome reptile which was to work the brown man's
vengeance.

For some time he lay listening intently. Once or twice he fancied that
he heard the rustle of the snake over the dingy carpet, and he wondered
whether it would attempt to climb on to the bed. He stood up, and tried
to get his revolver from the drawers. It was out of reach, and as the
bed creaked beneath his weight, a faint hiss sounded from the floor, and
he sat still again, hardly daring to breathe.

The cold rawness of the room chilled him. He cautiously dr