70 MYOLA CHAP. 
described, there was no milk and the sugar was almost 
black. Hens strayed in and unceremoniously picked 
up the crumbs that fell from the table, and the landlord 
sat at the head with his sleeves rolled up, carving us 
junks of meat and occupying the time in between by 
taking shots with the knife at the countless flies. I 
tried to look unconcerned through it all, and I think I 
succeeded. 
When night came on and with it crowds of mosqui- 
toes, the landlady further harassed my pent-up feelings 
by relating to me stories of blood-curdling murders com- 
mitted by the natives here, and ghastly tales of miners 
who had mysteriously disappeared, never to be heard 
of more. Finally I went to my room, and after taking 
a good look in my bed and under, to satisfy myself that 
no snakes were concealing themselves there, I fell into 
a restless kind of sleep, and woke up with a nameless 
sort of nightmare, in my start knocking over the candle 
on the chair beside me and scattering the matches broad- 
cast At the risk of being, as I thought, bitten, I had 
to get up and grope until I found them. 
I distinctly now heard a creature making its way to 
the door, and it sounded in the darkness like yards of 
snake dragging along the bare boards. I strained my 
eyes to catch a glimpse of It Now with a lighted 
match I was all right ; for a moment I thought it was a 
death adder as the light fell with a metallic gleam on 
its shiny body, and my heart literally thumped. Then 
it slowly moved away and I recc^^ised the smooth 
mottled back of a sleeping lizard about two feet long, 
a perfectly harmless creature that put out its tongue at 
me and showed me the distinctive mark of nobility of 
its race in the blue lining to its mouth. He had quite 
spoilt the remainder of my night's rest for me, and I 
poked him out of the door with my umbrella and 
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