Nan looked searchingly into the gloomy interior of the hut. It was now no home, whatever it may have been in the past. It was only the wreck of a dwelling.
The girl could see little at first save the bare floor, the heaps of rubbish in the corners, and the fact that the rafters of the floor above were no longer covered with boards—if ever they had been.
The ladder which led to the loft was in the far corner. There was not a stick of furniture in sight.
Suddenly Nan saw something moving in a streak of dusty sunlight that penetrated the side window. It was a pair of child’s thin legs kicking in the air!
Above the knees was the little torn frock, and, looking higher, and looking aghast, Nan saw that the tiny girl was hanging by her hands from the rafters.
“Oh, my dear!” she began, and stepped over the broken sill.
Then she halted—halted as though she had been frozen in her tracks.
From the floor, almost at Nan’s feet, it seemed, came a quick rustle—then a distinct rattle. The flat, brisk sound can never be mistaken, not even by one who has not heard it before. Wide-eyed, her breath leashed tight behind her teeth, Nan Sherwood stared about the floor. It was there, the coiled rattlesnake, almost under the bare, twitching soles of the hanging child’s feet.
In these few passing seconds the eyes of the girl from Tillbury had become so used to the semi-gloom that she could see the fear-stricken face of the imperiled child. Horror and despair looked out of the staring eyes. Her frail arms could not long hold the weight of her body.
She must drop, and the arrogantly lifted head of the rattlesnake, crested with wrath, was ready for the stroke.