I dreamed that we were once more in the shrubbery, as happened some years ago, and that the little African gent who shot like a book, was showing us the traces of those two black men, just as he did when they tried to steal her ladyship.

Then in my dream I seemed to go back to bed and that beastly snake which we found lying under the parcel in the road seemed to follow me.

When I had got to sleep again, all in the dream, there it was standing on its tail at the end of the bed, hissing till it woke me.

Then it spoke in good English and not in African as might have been expected.
"'"Savage," it said, "get up and dress yourself and go at once and tell his lordship to travel to Natal and find Mr.Allan Quatermain" (you may remember that was the African gentleman's name, my lord, which, with so many coming and going in this great house, I had quite forgotten, until I had the dream).

"Find Mr.Allan Quatermain," that slimy reptile went on, opening and shutting its mouth for all the world like a Christian making a speech, "for he will have something to tell him as to that which has made a hole in his heart that is now filled with the seven devils.