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Updated: May 6, 2025
Grasping a sword from among the weapons with which the walls were studded, I made a pass to sever the monster; but the Mangouste was quicker than I, as he darted upon the coils of the serpent, which, in a moment, fell heavily to the floor, a writhing, headless mass.
Numerous were the directions I had from him as to the diet and general treatment most congenial to the constitutions of white mice; and there was implicit confidence expressed, that, for safety, the Mangouste should be kept strictly confined to his cage.
Having prepared his decoctions, he had this night caused himself to be bitten by the snake, which, disgusted probably at its services being then rudely dispensed with, had followed its guiding instinct up to the room where the animals were, making its way through the holes nibbled by the Mangouste underneath the doors.
But the Mangouste had not returned, nor did I quite regret his absence for the present; because, although highly approving of the culture of four-footed beasts, be they large or small, I have a prejudice against having my jugular vein breathed, at midnight, by small animals of the weasel tribe, an act of which Mungo, probably, would have been incapable.
The most valued of these treasures were a small animal called a Mangouste, and a cage containing a family of white mice. These white mice were greatly prized by De Vonville, on account of the rare manner in which they were marked, their paws and muzzles being of a perfect jet black.
For the Mangouste and the mice, the parrots and the blasphemous macaw, I engaged temporary board and lodging with a bird-and-rabbit man in the neighborhood, telegraphing De Vonville that I had departed from lodgings forever, lodgings for single gentlemen, without board.
I live in a hotel now, a very noisy life, and fearfully expensive. "But what do you wish, my friend?" as the French say, in their peculiar idiom. Believing in the ancient Egyptians, who worshipped the Nilotic ichneumon, I have privately canonized his cousin, the Mangouste, by the style and title of St.
Once I had a vague sense of the Mangouste gliding across me, but it was only part of a dream; and it was still night, black and awful, when I started up in good earnest, at a piercing shriek from the united family of white mice, whose cage stood upon a low stand, about two yards to the right of where I lay.
The Mangouste, an animal somewhat resembling a ferret, but more nearly allied to the Nilotic ichneumon of Egypt, was a marvellously lithe and active little creature, perfectly tame, and coming as readily as a dog to his name, "Mungo," except when overfed, when he would sleep sometimes for hours, rolled up at the bottom of his cage, or in some dark corner of the room.
How the Mangouste came to appear on the scene at the nick of time, I know not. He might have come in at the open window, or possibly had been sleeping, since I missed him, among the trappings and traveller's gear with which the room was lumbered. And these were the delights of lodgings, of lodgings without board!
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