too, at this hour, and with the handle of a pistol sticking out of your
pocket--or is it--the head of a snake?" and he jumped back, a strange
and stately figure in a long white nightshirt which apparently he wore
over his underclothing.

I entered the room and shut the door, whereon he politely handed me a
chair, remarking,

"Is it ghosts, sir, or are you ill, or is it Harum and Scarum, of whom
I have been thinking all night? Very cold too, sir, being afraid to pull
up the bedclothes for fear lest there might be more reptiles in them."
He pointed to his dress-coat hanging on the back of another chair with
both the pockets turned inside out, adding tragically, "To think, sir,
that this new coat has been a nest of snakes, which I have hated like
poison from a child, and me almost a teetotaller!"

"Yes," I said impatiently, "it's Harum and Scarum as you call them. Take
me to Lord Ragnall's bedroom at once."

"Ah! sir, burgling, I suppose, or mayhap worse," he exclaimed as he
threw on some miscellaneous garments and seized a life-preserver which
hung upon a hook. "Now I'm ready, only I hope they have left their
snakes behind. I never could bear the sight of a snake, and they seem to
know it--the brutes."

In due course we reached Lord Ragnall's room, which Mr. Savage entered,
and in answer to a stifled inquiry exclaimed,

"Mr. Allan Quatermain to see you, my lord."