Something always turned up. I’d told myself that when my aunt had locked me in the coal cellar four years ago, and I’d been right. I’d run away and ended up on the Beagle.

The sun would soon burn off the haze.

Owww! I squealed in pain and jolted upright. The lizard was right there. I scooted back, clutching my foot. Why—the little brute had bitten me!

I leaped to my feet, hopping away from my attacker and grasping my foot, which was stinging awful bad. The lizard must have poison in its bite, maybe venom like a snake. But it wasn’t interested in having another go at me—instead it was pawing the ground like a bull about to charge. Something whipped and twisted beneath its claw. A giant centipede. That was the culprit!

The nasty thing was as long as my forearm with a glossy black body and yellow striped legs. It gave a last twitch before it fell still, pinned by the lizard’s claw.

The lizard had been defending me.

My whole leg now throbbed, and pain filled my head like scalding pitch. I collapsed back to the ground and writhed in a fresh surge of agony, as if I were being attacked again. I needed to remember what I knew about this creature. I’d labeled a similar specimen for Mr. Darwin a few days earlier: the Galapagos giant centipede. He’d said it could be poisonous. A good reason why, even in the tropical heat, we wore stout boots and gaiters.

The pain came in waves and, when I was able, I angled my foot and forced myself to take a closer look. There were two tiny puncture marks in my heel. A bite. The whole area was already pink and swollen, and it felt as if my heart was thumping in my foot.

The lizard nudged the dead centipede, and the scaled ruff at its neck lay flat, its small front teeth showing in a snarl. I shuddered, half expecting the lizard to eat the thing, but it picked it up gingerly with its mouth and flicked the broken insect through the air and away. Then it ran after it and continued to paw the ground, although the centipede was broken and long dead. The lizard shook its head like a dog shaking off water, and I would have laughed at its outrage if I weren’t in such pain. My head thumped and my eyes felt gritty. I tore a strip off the bottom of my ragged trousers and tied it round the bite with numb, clumsy fingers. I remembered the ship’s surgeon, Mr. Bynoe, saying something about sucking out the poison.

I doubled over, forcing my heel to my mouth with a groan, and sucked at the bite, then spat on the ground, over and over. I could taste nothing strange, only my own iron blood that now made two fresh red beads on my foot.