The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-06-25
MAGoG HUNG JUST AS RALPH HAD DESCRIBED HIM.

away English colony, he studied books
about the place. and read Of panthers,
elephants. elk and snakes living in pro-
fusion there. he felt somewhat alarmed,
being, you know. merely a harmless,
studious youth of some IL years old,
who had not the slightest desire to kill
an elephant. SO long as the elephant
did not want TO kill him.
Ralph read of cobras and tic-polongaS
and other VenomouS snakes of the is
land. until he was scared, and, by the
time his periadore Cor manageD had
installed him in the little bamboo
matched bungalow which he was to
call his own, he was in that state. if
you had trailed a whiplaSh suddenly
before his unsuspecting gaze, he would
have gone into Mysteries.
Ralph had one particular servant,
whom he had TO engage and pay him
self-De Silva, q. Cingalese. The other
help came from the coolie lines of the
estate, and, after their days work,
used to retire to their huts. When din
ner in the evening was over, De Silva
used to retire also. Where he retired
TO Ralph never inquired. Indian ser
wants have a way of disappearing and
turning up again which would puzzle
a conjuror. There was a kitchen and
clubhouse separate from the bungalow,
ter salaaming and saying ''goonye. hon
orable sir went away to sleep on the
top of the kitchen range.
At any rate, after the days work was
done unless he was invited to dine with
the periadore, Ralph was utterly alone,
with no white man nearer than the big
bungalow, a mile and half away
down the mountain. It is an awful
horrible way to be left, as Ralph was,
fresh from home and mother and sis
tiers. He used TO sit and try to read the
magazines sent him, and his books, but
the terrible silence of the mountains
welcome to an older man-frightened
him. That silence would be broken
sometimes by a furious tom-tom orgie
at the huts of the coolies. or the long
wall of a native woman, mourning her
dead child, OF again by sudden tropi-
cal thunderstorm, with such crashes of
thunder echoing among the mountains,
and such torrents of rain as filled the
boys timid soul with terror.
Ii was in the midst of one such storm
when the reading lamp was low. and it
was near midnight. that Ralph, longing
for a companion. for some one to talk
to, looked up and saw Magog. Ralph
gave one tremendous howl and rushed
out through the back door. TO seek De
Silva De Silva was placidly asleep on
the couch he had chosen FOR that night
"a shelf just. one would think broad
enough for the crockery it was intend
ed to hold. Still. De Silva looked COM
Portable.
a COBRA" yelled Ralph. pulling the
cook down on the floor without regard
TO his feelings. "A cobra, \ snake, A
serpent, A mOnster,'
Where" cried De Silva, jumping on
chair.
IN the sitting room, hanging half
down the wall, It hangs from the
ceiling cloth Gin the old bungalows
whiIewashed canvas. often cracking at
the walls. is stretched beneath the raf- |
tiers. and looks just like an ordinary
ceiling) and WAS coming al me-"
De Silva hooked at Ralph reproach- |
fully. and at his Shelf-bed regretfully
oh, honorable dore." said he. lit is |
Magog. Did you not know? 1t is the |
special friend and protector of my last |
honorable .dore. No cobra-no. dore. |
Only one great, beautiful, much-to-be- |
caressed ratsnake, Magogi"
So De Silva went with his young |
master into the bungalow and intro |
duced him to Magog-the snake Ma |
cog hung just as Ralph has described |
him, half way down the wall, a great, |
fat. black snake, with quiet, steady. |
Watchful eyes on the room. 1t hung |
ready, at flash of dread. TO draw |
itself up above the ceiling cloth and |
disappear in its lair there beneath the |
bamboo thatch. where it hunted the |