"Listen attentively," he continued, becoming slightly dramatic as he remembered more clearly the horrors of the preceding night—his first on Ibis Island. "I shall go into that devilish bungalow and look around like a scared dog, standing very carefully in the exact centre of the room. And what will be the first object that my unwilling eyes encounter? A scorpion! Perhaps two, crawling out from the Spanish moss with which the chinks of that miserable abode are stuffed. I shall slay it—or them—as the case may be. Then a blue-tailed lizard will frisk over the ceiling—or perhaps one of those big, heavy ones with blunt, red heads. Doubtless at that same instant I shall discover a wood-tick advancing up one of my trousers' legs. Spiders will begin to move across the walls. Perhaps a snake or two will then develop from some shadowy corner."[165]
He waved his arm impressively and pointed at the sleeping puppy.
"Under such circumstances," he said pathetically, "would you care to deprive me of this little companion sent by Providence for me to rescue out of the sea?"
She, too, had been steadily pouring sand between her white fingers during the moving recital of his woes. Now she looked up, controlling a shudder.
"Your circumstances, with all their attendant horrors, are my own," she began. "I, also, since last night, inhabit a picturesque but most horrid bungalow not very far from here; and every one of the creatures you describe, and several others also, inhabit it with me. Do you wonder I want some companionship? Do you wonder that I am inclined to cling to this little dog—whether or not it may seem ill bred and selfish to you?"
He said: "I suppose all the houses in this latitude harbour tarantulas, centipedes, and similar things, but you must remember that you do not live alone as I do——"
"Yes, I do!"
"What?"
"Certainly. I engaged two black servants in St. Augustine, but they have not arrived, and I was[166] obliged to remain all alone in that frightful place last night."
"That's very odd," he said uneasily. "Where is this bungalow of yours?"