time the subdued beasts were entangled in the net and being pulled on board with the electric hoist, one bleary eye was looking out through the mesh.
“Damn! They’re still awake,” said Uncle Earl: “Better give ’em another dose.”
Smedlow pulled back his feet to avoid the puddle. For by now the large, dripping, groggy reptiles had been lowered on deck and securely tied with ropes. The woman (kneeling down so that her skirt rode up upon a massive calf) was poking -- first one and then the other -- with a remarkably dirty glass syringe.
Smedlow knew, by long experience, that many women -- even of the most fearsome and unyielding variety -- could be brought to heel by just the right quality of studious attention. After all, women of every stripe, from debutantes to dowagers, had sat with open mouth in his dentist chair and submitted to the keening of his drill. So now he did his best to counterfeit an expression of sudden and delighted admiration, as if this kneeling woman were -- not a jaundiced slattern with the buttocks of an ox -- but some mysterious beauty at a formal ball revealing a glimpse of elegant leg.
“This one’s got good glands,” she said, suddenly aware of his persistent gaze and reaching beneath the tail to explore the cloaca of the huge albino.
“Well, there she is!” said Uncle Earl.
At first glance Smedlow only saw the sphinxes and -- on the lintel above and between them -- the words
Serpent of the Nile Company
Elixirs and Fine Perfumes
just barely legible above a rotting door ahead of them. The brick walls of the factory were crumbling so that it was possible to see inside into a vast room of weeds and rusted tubs. There was also an immense ruined chimney in there and a hill of bottles glimmering in the moonlight. A cornerstone, nearly overcome by vines, read 1846. Small lizards darted about among the debris.
“Yer gonna be spendin’ a long time here, ace,” said Lemuel Lee, who had already tied the boat up to a sapling and stacked the cigar boxes on the muddy shore. “Besides the gators, mister, we got six different types a reptiles here that’ll kill you in one way or another. We got moccasins and diamondbacks, corals and canebrakes, copperheads and pygmies. Some a the cells here is filled with ’em and they wouldn’t like nothin’ better than to sink their fangs into a juicy fatty. If you try to run, they’ll get ya -- or the quicksand will. That big can a yours will pull you down like a lead sinker. You can wave yer paws and scream till yer blue an’ no one’s gonna care. Now I know you mighta been some kinda big deal back where you come from, but right here, pal, you ain’t no more than cattle. If we wanna take yer meat, then that’s what we’re gonna do. So it ain’t no use blubberin’. Just listen good to what I tell you, cause I’m the only friend you got.”
There was a sudden howling sound -- and it wasn’t the wind. It came in bursts of agony like the death cries of an injured animal, an inhuman rhapsody of horrified bellowing. Just as suddenly it stopped and was followed by a series of staccato screeches like the chattering of monkeys. The goat, now grazing among the ruins, lifted its head and bleated.
“Look! Here comes Hattie,” said Aunt Ligeia.
A bent-over figure, waving her cane, shaking her head spasmod-ically as if she were electrified, had opened the rotting door between the sphinxes and was now hobbling toward them. Smedlow was distressed to see that her bathrobe was loose enough to expose a shrivelled dug. The moonlight was so bright that he could see that her curlers were pink, her bobby socks were green, and that she wore sneakers.
This remarkably ancient creature had very bad, almost perfectly brown teeth and one brown eye -- while the other was a startling blue. She reminded Smedlow of
“Damn! They’re still awake,” said Uncle Earl: “Better give ’em another dose.”
Smedlow pulled back his feet to avoid the puddle. For by now the large, dripping, groggy reptiles had been lowered on deck and securely tied with ropes. The woman (kneeling down so that her skirt rode up upon a massive calf) was poking -- first one and then the other -- with a remarkably dirty glass syringe.
Smedlow knew, by long experience, that many women -- even of the most fearsome and unyielding variety -- could be brought to heel by just the right quality of studious attention. After all, women of every stripe, from debutantes to dowagers, had sat with open mouth in his dentist chair and submitted to the keening of his drill. So now he did his best to counterfeit an expression of sudden and delighted admiration, as if this kneeling woman were -- not a jaundiced slattern with the buttocks of an ox -- but some mysterious beauty at a formal ball revealing a glimpse of elegant leg.
“This one’s got good glands,” she said, suddenly aware of his persistent gaze and reaching beneath the tail to explore the cloaca of the huge albino.
“Well, there she is!” said Uncle Earl.
At first glance Smedlow only saw the sphinxes and -- on the lintel above and between them -- the words
Serpent of the Nile Company
Elixirs and Fine Perfumes
just barely legible above a rotting door ahead of them. The brick walls of the factory were crumbling so that it was possible to see inside into a vast room of weeds and rusted tubs. There was also an immense ruined chimney in there and a hill of bottles glimmering in the moonlight. A cornerstone, nearly overcome by vines, read 1846. Small lizards darted about among the debris.
“Yer gonna be spendin’ a long time here, ace,” said Lemuel Lee, who had already tied the boat up to a sapling and stacked the cigar boxes on the muddy shore. “Besides the gators, mister, we got six different types a reptiles here that’ll kill you in one way or another. We got moccasins and diamondbacks, corals and canebrakes, copperheads and pygmies. Some a the cells here is filled with ’em and they wouldn’t like nothin’ better than to sink their fangs into a juicy fatty. If you try to run, they’ll get ya -- or the quicksand will. That big can a yours will pull you down like a lead sinker. You can wave yer paws and scream till yer blue an’ no one’s gonna care. Now I know you mighta been some kinda big deal back where you come from, but right here, pal, you ain’t no more than cattle. If we wanna take yer meat, then that’s what we’re gonna do. So it ain’t no use blubberin’. Just listen good to what I tell you, cause I’m the only friend you got.”
There was a sudden howling sound -- and it wasn’t the wind. It came in bursts of agony like the death cries of an injured animal, an inhuman rhapsody of horrified bellowing. Just as suddenly it stopped and was followed by a series of staccato screeches like the chattering of monkeys. The goat, now grazing among the ruins, lifted its head and bleated.
“Look! Here comes Hattie,” said Aunt Ligeia.
A bent-over figure, waving her cane, shaking her head spasmod-ically as if she were electrified, had opened the rotting door between the sphinxes and was now hobbling toward them. Smedlow was distressed to see that her bathrobe was loose enough to expose a shrivelled dug. The moonlight was so bright that he could see that her curlers were pink, her bobby socks were green, and that she wore sneakers.
This remarkably ancient creature had very bad, almost perfectly brown teeth and one brown eye -- while the other was a startling blue. She reminded Smedlow of
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