He had sprang to his feet and was shaking something from his hand. It fell on the ground, and he stamped upon it and crushed it.
“What is that?” she asked, glancing from the ground to his face, which was growing very white.
“Only entomology,” he replied. “Look at it.”
A huge red scorpion lay on the ground, where he had trodden upon it. It died hard, however, and though half-crashed it lay writhing and darting out its formidable sting in its rage.
“In half a second it would have been on your neck; it was going there as fast as it could crawl when I picked it off,” he said.
“Has it stung you? Of course it has,” she cried, her rich voice vibrating with concern. “Why, Arthur,” she went on, all in a glow of admiration; “do you mean to say that you snatched that dreadful creature off me with your bare hand?”
It was the first time she had ever called him “Arthur,” and for a moment he almost forgot the furious pain of the sting.
“Just that. I’d lay hold of the devil himself under far less provocation, I assure you. It was the only way of getting it off quick enough. By Jingo, it hurts, though. Look away for a moment, I’m going to slash it.”
Opening his knife, which was keen and sharp as a razor, he drew its blade across the wound in a couple of deep gashes. The blood spurted freely, and he ground his teeth in the convulsive anguish caused by the venomous brute’s sting, which seemed to go through his whole frame. Then he applied his lips to the wound and sucked.
“Good thing it missed that large vein,” he said. For he had been just in time to seize the creature and crush it up in his fingers, during which process it had whipped up its tail and stung him twice just round the back of the hand. “Oh, I shall be all right, but we’d better get back. The Baas sometimes carries a bottle of Croft’s Tincture. That’ll put it right in no time,” continued he, with rather a ghastly smile. For the sting of a scorpion is terribly painful; indeed, unless a remedy is at hand the sufferer will undergo the most acute agony. The sting of the Apocalyptical locusts has been well compared.