I'll talk to you in the morning." Then I kicked the door, and at length, very cautiously, Mr.Savage opened it.
"Good heavens, sir," he said, "what are you doing here, sir?
Dressed 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." "What is it, Quatermain ?" he asked, sitting up in bed and yawning.

"Have you had a nightmare ?" "Yes," I answered, and Savage having left us and shut the door, I told him everything as it is written down.
"Great heavens!" he exclaimed when I had finished.