stool, both hands gripping the high shelf, she felt the reptile whipping, writhing, jerking, lashing, flogging at her ankle and instep, coiling round her leg…. And in the fraction of a second the thought flashed through her mind: "If its head is under my foot, or too close to my foot for its fangs to reach me, I am safe while I remain as I am. If its head is free I am doomed—and matters cannot be any the worse for my keeping as I am."
And she kept as she was, with one foot on the stool, out of reach, and one foot on the snake.
And screamed?
No, called quietly and coolly for the butler, remembering that she had sent Nurse Beaton out, that her husband was at polo, that there were none but native servants in the house, and that if she raised an alarm they would take it, and with single heart consider each the safety of Number One.
"Boy!" she called calmly, though the room swam round her and a deadly faintness began to paralyse her limbs and loosen her hold upon the shelf—"Boy! Come here."
Antonio Ferdinand Xavier D'Souza, Goanese butler, heard and came.
"Mem-Sahib?" quoth he, at the door of the go-down.
"Bring a lamp quickly," said Lenore de Warrenne in a level voice.
The worthy Antonio, fat, spectacled, bald and wheezy, hurried away and peremptorily bade the hamal2, son of a jungle-pig, to light and bring a lamp quickly.
The hamal, respectfully pointing out to the Bootlair Sahib that the daylight was yet strong and lusty enough to shame and smother any lamp, complied with deliberation and care, polishing the chimney, trimming the wick, pouring in oil and generally making a satisfactory and commendable job of it.
Lenore de Warrenne, sick, faint, sinking, waited … waited … waited … gripping the shelf and fighting against her over-mastering weakness for the life of the unborn child that, even in that awful moment, she prayed might be a daughter.
After many cruelly long centuries, and as she swayed to fall, the good Antonio entered with the lamp. Her will triumphed over her falling body.
"Boy, I am standing on a snake!" said she coolly. "Put the lamp—"
But Antonio did not stay to "put" the lamp; incontinent he dropped it on the floor and fled yelling "Sap! Sap!" and that the Mem-Sahib was bitten, dying, dead—certainly dead; dead for hours.
And the brave soul in the little room waited … waited … waited … gripping the shelf, and thinking of the coming daughter, and wondering whether she must die by snake-bite or fire—unborn—with her unhappy mother. For the fallen lamp had burst, the oil had caught fire, and the fire gave no light by which she could see what was beneath her foot—head, body, or tail of the lashing, squirming snake—as the flame flickered, rose and fell, burnt blue, swayed, roared in the draught of the door—did anything but give a light by which she could see as she bent over awkwardly, still gripping the shelf, one foot on the stool, further prevented from seeing by her loose draperies.
Soon she realized that in any case she could not see her foot without changing her position—a thing she would not do while there was hope—and strength to hold on. For hope there was, inasmuch as she had not yet felt the stroke of the reptile's fangs.
Again she reasoned calmly, though strength was ebbing fast; she must remain as she was till death by fire or suffocation was the alternative to flight—flight which was synonymous with death, for, as her other foot came down and she stepped off the snake, in that instant it would strike—if it had not struck already.
Meantime—to call steadily and coolly again.
This time she called to the hamal, a Bhil, engaged out of compassion, and likely, as a son of the jungle's sons, to be of more courage than the stall-fed butler in presence of dangerous beast or reptile.
"Hamal: I want you," she called coolly.
"Mem-Sahib?" came the reply from the lamp-room near by, and the man approached.
"That stupid butler has dropped a lamp and run away. Bring a pail of water quickly and call to the malli3 to bring a pail of earth as you get it. Hasten!—and there is baksheesh," said Mrs. de Warrenne quietly in the vernacular.
Tap and pail were by the door of the back verandah. In a minute the hamal entered and flung a pail of water on the burning pool of oil, reducing the mass of blue lambent flames considerably.
"Now hamal," said the fainting woman, the more immediate danger confronted, "bring another lamp very quickly and put it on the shelf. Quick! don't stop to fill or to clean it."
Was the pricking, shooting pain the repeated stabbing of the snake's fangs or was it "pins and needles"? Was this deadly faintness death indeed, or was it only weakness?
In what seemed but a few more years the man reappeared carrying a lighted lamp, the which he placed upon a shelf.
"Listen," said Mrs. de Warrenne, "and have no fear, brave Bhil. I have caught a snake. Get a knife quickly and cut off its head while I hold it."
The man glancing up, appeared to suppose that his mistress held the snake on the shelf, hurried away, and rushed back with the cook's big kitchen-knife gripped dagger-wise in his right hand.
"Do you see the snake?" she managed to whisper. "Under my foot! Quick! It is moving … moving … moving out."
With a wild Bhil cry the man flung himself down upon his hereditary dread foe and slashed with the knife.
Mrs. de Warrenne heard it scratch along the floor, grate on a nail, and crush through the snake.
"Aré!! Dead, Mem-Sahib!! Dead!! See, I have cut off its head! Aré!!!! Wah!! The brave mistress!——"
As she collapsed, Mrs. de Warrenne saw the twitching body of a large cobra with its head severed close to its neck. Its head had just protruded from under her foot and she had saved the unborn life for which she had fought so bravely by just keeping still…. She had won her brief decoration with the Cross by—keeping still. (Her husband had won his permanent right to it by extreme activity.) … Had she moved she would have been struck instantly, for the reptile was, by her, uninjured, merely nipped between instep and floor.
Having realized this, Lenore de Warrenne fainted and then passed from fit to fit, and her child—a boy—was born that night. Hundreds of times during the next few days the same terrible cry rang from the sick-room through the hushed bungalow: "It is under my foot! It is moving … moving … moving … out!"
* * *
"If I had to make a prophecy concerning this young fella," observed the broken-hearted Major John Decies, I.M.S., Civil Surgeon of Bimariabad, as he watched old Nurse Beaton performing the baby's elaborate ablutions and toilet, "I should say that he will not grow up fond of snakes—not if there is anything in the 'pre-natal influence' theory."
Part II.
The Searing of a Soul
Chapter II.
The Sword and the Snake
Colonel Matthew Devon De Warrenne, commanding the Queen's Own (118th) Bombay Lancers, was in good time, in his best review-order uniform, and in a terrible state of mind.
He strode from end to end of the long verandah of his bungalow with clank of steel, creak of leather, and groan of travailing soul. As the top of his scarlet, blue and gold turban touched the lamp that hung a good seven feet above his spurred heels he swore viciously.
Almost for the first time in his hard-lived, selfish