His feeling of uneasiness was fast growing toward a climax, and he had the unpleasant conviction that, once it did reach a climax, something would happen. What was the answer to Fafhrd's question? What form of death had struck down that earlier intruder? It was very dark inside the treasure house. Didn't the manuscript mention something about a guardian? It was hard to think of a flesh-and-blood guardian persisting for three hundred years, but there were things that were immortal or nearly immortal. He could tell that Fafhrd was not in the least affected by any premonitory disquietude, and was quite capable of instituting an immediate search for the treasure. That must be prevented at all costs. He remembered that the Northerner loathed snakes.

“This cold, damp stone,” he observed casually. “Just the place for scaly, cold-blooded snakes."

“Nothing of the sort,” replied Fafhrd angrily. “I'm willing to wager there's not a single serpent inside. Urgaan's note said, ‘No deadly creature in rocky lair,’ and to cap that, ‘no serpent lethal-fanged yet fair.’”

“I am not thinking of guardian snakes Urgaan may have left here,” the Mouser explained, “but only of serpents that may have wandered in for the night. Just as that skull you hold is not one set there by Urgaan ‘with mortal eye a-glare,’ but merely the brain-case of some unfortunate wayfarer who chanced to perish here."

“I don't know,” Fafhrd said, calmly eyeing the skull.

“Its orbits might glow phosphorescently in absolute dark."

A moment later he was agreeing it would be well to postpone the search until daylight returned, now that the treasure house was located. He carefully replaced the skull.

As they re-entered the woods, the Mouser heard a little inner voice whispering to him, Just in time. Just in time. Then the sense of uneasiness departed as suddenly as it had come, and he began to feel somewhat ridiculous. This caused him to sing a bawdy ballad of his own invention, wherein demons and other supernatural agents were ridiculed obscenely. Fafhrd chimed in good-naturedly on the choruses.