FullReads

I cleaned my rifle and revolver. I wrote up my note-book. I developed some plates; I studied a brand-new book on South Sea grasses that had been sent out to me, and I found some mistakes. I went ashore with Don, and had a long walk on the beach–in the opposite direction from Graves’s house, of course–and I sent Don into the water after sticks, and he seemed to enjoy it, and so I stripped and went in with him. Then I dried in the sun, and had a match with my hands to see which could find the tiniest shell. Toward dusk we returned to the schooner and had dinner, and after that I went into my cabin to see how Bo was getting on.

She flew at me like a cat, and if I hadn’t jerked my foot back she must have bitten me. As it was, her teeth tore a piece out of my trousers. I’m afraid I kicked her. Anyway, I heard her land with a crash in a far corner. I struck a match and lighted candles–they are cooler than lamps–very warily–one eye on Bo. She had retreated under a chair and looked out–very sullen and angry. I sat down and began to talk to her. “It’s no use,” I said, “you’re trying to bite and scratch, because you’re only as big as a minute. So come out here and make friends. I don’t like you and you don’t like me; but we’re going to be thrown together for quite some time, so we’d better make the best of it. You come out here and behave pretty and I’ll give you a bit of gingersnap.”

The last word was intelligible to her, and she came a little way out from under the chair. I had a bit of gingersnap in my pocket, left over from treating Don, and I tossed it on the floor midway between us. She darted forward and ate it with quick bites.

Well, then, she looked up, and her eyes asked–just as plain as day: “Why are things thus? Why have I come to live with you? I don’t like you. I want to go back to Graves.”

I couldn’t explain very well, and just shook my head and then went on trying to make friends–it was no use. She hated me, and after a time I got bored. I threw a pillow on the floor for her to sleep on, and left her. Well, the minute the door was shut and locked she began to sob. You could hear her for quite a distance, and I couldn’t stand it. So I went back–and talked to her as nicely and soothingly as I could. But she wouldn’t even look at me–just lay face down–heaving and sobbing.

Now I don’t like little creatures that snap–so when I picked her up it was by the scruff of the neck. She had to face me then, and I saw that in spite of all the sobbing her eyes were perfectly dry. That struck me as curious. I examined them through a pocket magnifying-glass, and discovered that they had no tear-ducts. Of course she couldn’t cry. Perhaps I squeezed the back of her neck harder than I meant to–anyway, her lips began to draw back and her teeth to show.

It was exactly at that second that I recalled the legend Graves had told me about the island woman being found dead, and all black and swollen, back there in the grass, with teeth marks on her that looked as if they had been made by a very little child.

I forced Bo’s mouth wide open and looked in. Then I reached for a candle and held it steadily between her face and mine. She struggled furiously so that I had to put down the candle and catch her legs together in my free hand. But I had seen enough. I felt wet and cold all over. For if the swollen glands at the base of the deeply grooved canines meant anything, that which I held between my hands was not a woman–but a snake.