Part 168 (2/2)

I was not anxious to a.s.sist Strickland in his work, but I took the loading-rod and waited in the dining-room, while Strickland brought a gardener's ladder from the veranda and set it against the side of the room. The snake tails drew themselves up and disappeared. We could hear the dry rus.h.i.+ng scuttle of long bodies running over the baggy cloth.

Strickland took a lamp with him, while I tried to make clear the danger of hunting roof snakes between a ceiling cloth and a thatch, apart from the deterioration of property caused by ripping out ceiling-cloths.

”N o n s en s e,” said Strickland. ”They're sure to hide near the walls by the cloth. The bricks are too cold for 'em, and the heat of the room is just what they like.” He put his hands to the corner of the cloth and ripped the rotten stuff from the cornice. It gave great sound of tearing, and Strickland put his head through the opening into the dark of the angle of the roof beams. I set my teeth and lifted the loading-rod, for I had not the least knowledge of what might descend.

”H'm,” said Strickland; and his voice rolled and rumbled in the roof.

”There's room for another set of rooms up here, and, by Jove! some one is occupying em.”

”Snakes?” I said down below.

”No. It's a buffalo. Hand me up the two first joints of a masheer rod, and I'll prod it. It's lying on the main beam.”

I handed up the rod.

”What a nest for owls and serpents! No wonder the snakes live here,”

said Strickland, climbing further into the roof. I could see his elbow thrusting with the rod. ”Come out of that, whoever you are! Look out!

Heads below there! It's tottering.”

I saw the ceiling-cloth nearly in the centre of the room bag with a shape that was pressing it downward and downward toward the lighted lamps on the table. I s.n.a.t.c.hed a lamp out of danger and stood back. Then the cloth ripped out from the walls, tore, split, swayed, and shot down upon the table something that I dared not look at till Strickland had slid down the ladder and was standing by my side.

He did not say much, being a man of few words, but he picked up the loose end of the table-cloth and threw it over the thing on the table.

”It strikes me,” said he, pulling down the lamp, ”our friend Imray has come back. Oh! you would, would you?”

There was a movement under the cloth, and a little snake wriggled out, to be back-broken by the b.u.t.t of the masheer rod. I was sufficiently sick to make no remarks worth recording.

Strickland meditated and helped himself to drinks liberally. The thing under the cloth made no more signs of life.

”Is it Imray?” I said.

Strickland turned back the cloth for a moment and looked. ”It is Imray,”

he said, ”and his throat is cut from ear to ear.”

Then we spoke both together and to ourselves:

”That's why he whispered about the house.”

Tietjens, in the garden, began to bay furiously. A little later her great nose heaved upon the dining-room door.

She sniffed and was still. The broken and tattered ceiling-cloth hung down almost to the level of the table, and there was hardly room to move away from the discovery.

Then Tietjens came in and sat down, her teeth bared and her forepaws planted. She looked at Strickland.

”It's bad business, old lady,” said he. ”Men don't go up into the roofs of their bungalows to die, and they don't fasten up the ceiling-cloth behind 'em. Let's think it out.”

”Let's think it out somewhere else,” I said.

”Excellent idea! Turn the lamps out. We'll get into my room.”

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