He had cut himself a good broad coving from the inside of the mowana–tree, about three feet from the ground, fitted up with a flap and a pillow–place, and strewn with fresh plantain–leaves. Across the niche he had fastened a new mosquito net, borrowed from his friend the trader, whose goods he began to look upon now as placed under his trusteeship. And in that rude couch he slept as snugly, after a hard dayʼs work, as the pupa does of the goat moth, or of the giant sirex. Under his feet was Wenaʼs hole, wherein she crouched like a rabbit, and pricked her ears every now and then, and barked if ever the wind moaned. _Fortunatos nimium_; there was nobody to rogue them. And yet no sooner was Craddy asleep, upon the night I am telling of, than that dirty bottle–green snake, flat–headed, and with a yearʼs supply of venom in its tooth–bag, came wriggling on its dappled belly around the hollow ring, while the dying embers of the fire—for the night was rather chilly and wet, and Cradock had cooked some fish—showed the mean sneak, poking its head up, feeling the temper of the time, ready to wriggle to anything. Then it came to the bedposts of Cradockʼs couch, which he had cut, in a dry sort of humour, from the soft baobab wood. It lifted its head, and heard him snoring, and tapped its tail, and listened again. Very likely it was warm up there, and the snake was a little chilly, in this depth of the winter. So without any evil forethought—for I must be just, even to a snake—though ready to bite, at a move or a turn, of the animal known as “man,” up went that little serpent, cleverly and elegantly, as on a Bohemian vase. Cradock would have died in two hours after that snake had bitten him. But before that lissom coil of death had got all its tail off the ground, fangs as keen as its own, though not poisonous, had it by the nape of the neck. Wena knew a snake by this time, and could treat them aright. She gave the devilish miscreant not a chance to twist upon her, but tore him from his belly–hold, and walked pleasantly to the fire, and with a spit of execration threw him into it, and ran back, and then ran to again, and barked at the noise he made in fizzing. Therewith Cradock awoke, and got out of bed, and saw the past danger, and coaxed the little dog, and kissed her, and talked to her about Amy, whose name she knew quite as well as her own. After all his works were finished, and when he hardly knew what great public improvement he should next attempt, Cradock received visitors, unexpected and unfashionable. In fact, they were all stark naked; although that proves very little. Climbing his tree, one beautiful morning, he saw four or five little marks on the sea, as of so many housemaidsʼ thumbs, when the cheek of the grate has been polished. Staring thereat with all his eyes—as we loosely express it—he found that the thumb–marks got bigger and bigger, until they became long canoes, paddling, like good ones, towards him.