Oliver obeyed her without question, taking great swallows from the flask of fiery liquor and closing his eyes after each. His senses swam and he felt weak and delirious, though he could not tell whether this last was because of the poison or the liquor he had consumed.
At last Jessamy leaned back and fumbled in a pocket of her chaps. She produced a tiny round box, from which she took a bottle of dry permanganate of potash and a small lancet. With the keen instrument she hacked a deep x in his arm, just over the wound. Then she wet the red powder with saliva and worked a paste into the cuts with the lancet.
This done, she sat back and regarded her patient complacently.
"Just take it easy," she counselled. "And, whatever you do, don't worry. You won't know you were bitten in an hour. Sip that whisky now and then. It won't kill the poison, as some folks seem to believe, but it will make you light-hearted and you'll forget to worry. That's the part it plays in a case like this. Now if I can trust you to keep quiet and serene, I'll seek revenge."
He nodded weakly.
She arose, and presently again came that sickening whir-r-r-r-r-r miscalled a rattle, followed immediately by a vicious thud-thud-thud.
"There, you horrid creature!" he heard in a low, triumphant tone. "You thought I was afraid of you, did you? Bring total collapse on all your fictitious traditions and bite before you rattle, will you! Requiescat in pace, Mr. Showut Poche-daka!"
Half an hour afterward Oliver Drew was on his feet, but he staggered drunkenly. To this day he is not just sure whether he was intoxicated or raving from the effects of the snakebite. Anyway, as Jessamy took hold of him to steady him, his reason left him, and he swept her into his arms and kissed her lips time and again, though she struggled valiantly to free herself.
Ultimately she ducked under his arms and sprang away from him backward, her face crimson, her bosom heaving.
"Sit down again!" she ordered chokingly. "Shame on you, to take advantage of me like that!"