Leggy

The astonishing beauty, excellent friends, and gracious manners assisted him in enduring all the horrors of tasteless fare and oppressive weather. He had still more terror to feel whereupon coming to their shelter for the evening and stepping over the threshold of Rautu’s home, Alasdair was greeted with a most horrifying sight. “By the Gods,” he shrieked, “what is that?”

                On the far wall, at which Alasdair was vehemently pointing and gaping, was a creature that he could never have conceived existed: a body long and cylindrical divided into short sections by flexible scales, numerous long and bent legs furnishing the underside of a serpentine form, a large head with protruding black eyes , a mouth laden with retracting mandibles. The horrid being seemed to take little notice of the entering party; it only glanced momentarily at Alasdair, who was beginning to whimper in dread, and then continued its business of crawling along the wall and slinking over itself as it went.