"Are you feeling well to-day, Eletheer? You seem so preoccupied."
"Physically, yes; but, Mary, I'm actually nervous. Everything looks so uncanny."
"You are accustomed to an out-of-door life and I trust have not made a mistake in your choice of profession. Hark! Did you hear anything?"
"There, Mary, you too, are nervous," said Eletheer, forcing a laugh. "See!" pointing upward, "nothing but a pair of stray bats."
"And a snake coiled among the bushes yonder! Come, Eletheer, let's go home. I'm getting the 'creeps.'"
"Indeed, let's do no such thing! It's the heat combined with this utter silence that affects us. There goes that snake now!"
As they looked, a dirty-green snake trailed his lazy length towards the creek. At the same time, two bats fluttered over it like shadows, until they, too, melted into the tremulous haze that overhung everything.
"I was about to add," Eletheer resumed with a backward glance, "that Dr. Herschel
