Page:O Douglas - Olivia in India.djvu/235

Rh "It's our midnight visitor," G. and I cried together.

We waited, breathless. The servants rushed on to the verandah with sticks—a dark streak slid down the verandah pillar—Mr. Townley fired. It wasn't a tiger, it was a civet cat—a thing rather like a fox, with a long pointed nose and an uncommonly nasty smell.

"Think," said G., as we looked at it lying stretched out stiff,—"think of having that thing under our bed! A mouse indeed!"

We didn't say "I told you so," but we looked it.

Boggley comes back to-morrow, and I am going with him to the Grand Hotel, so that we shall be together for the last little while.

Agra, April 11.

.. a chapter in the Arabian Nights; from the middle of the most gorgeous fairy-tale the mind of man could invent, I write to you to-night.

Often I have heard of the Taj Mahal, read of its beauty, dreamed of its magic, but never in my dreams did I imagine anything so exquisite, so perfect.