battens, which felt cold and scaly; and but for the fact
that his left arm was hooked over one of the sloping supports of the
ridge-pole, he would have dropped heavily back on to the floor of the
elephant-stable.

As it was, his legs felt as if they were hanging paralysed downward, and
he was conscious of the fact that the batten that he had last grasped
was slowly gliding through his right hand and getting thinner and
thinner, till it passed rustling away right in amongst the palm-leaf
thatching.

"Oh dear!" sighed Peter Pegg, "could that have been fancy? It felt just
like a big snake. Phew! How hot it is! And yet I feel quite cold. Is
it fancy? I know snakes do climb trees, but what could a snake be doing
up here in the thatch? Oh, murder! It's all right enough. I know!
Didn't the Doctor tell Mister Archie that they crawled up the walls and
had their regular runs so that they could catch the rats and birds?"

He made a movement, as he began to master the strange feeling of dread,
to replace his feet in the rough trellis into which his toes had been
thrust, and then woke to the fact that his legs were not swinging
downwards, for the half-paralysing sensation had been caused by sheer
dread.

"Think of that, now!" he said. "I thought they would give way. Here,
let's get down out of this. Shouldn't be at all surprised if there's
snakes swarming all over the place. That one didn't bite me, did it?
Don't know that I should mind a honest bite, but some of these things
are poison. Here, I have had enough of this;" and he felt about with a
strange feeling of creepiness for the batten that he had not touched.
This he grasped shrinkingly.

"Oh, this ain't a snake," he said. "Bamboo; and a thick 'un, too, for
here's a knot. Here, don't be such a coward, Peter. Go on, comrade.
That there snake's gone, and it was more afraid of you than you were of
it."

Gaining fresh courage, he had very little difficulty in creeping out
from beneath the great mat and drawing himself upwards till he lay out
in the darkness upon the roof, panting heavily as he breathed in the
soft, cool, night air.

"Now, can I find this hole again?" he said to himself. "Oh yes, all
right. And what's this?" For his hand encountered a good-sized stone
secured in its place by a thin rotan bound over it, and passed through
the thatch and under one of the battens. "That's all right," he said to
himself, as he began to crawl up the slope t