“None whatever. The bite of a mamba of that size and volume is absolutely fatal to man or beast.”
“It is a mamba then? But the size of it?”
“Yes. It’s the indhlondhlo—the crested variety. I’ve only seen one before, and it was nothing like the size of this. They are rather scarce.”
“And a good thing too,” said the girl with something of a shudder as they stood contemplating the still moving coils of their late enemy. “Your poor horse has revenged himself. Poor beast! Will his death be a painful one?”
“I don’t think so. A stupor, more or less gradual, usually attends death from snake-bite.”
As though to bear out its owner’s words, the poor animal, which had risen to its feet, now tottered, swayed, and then lay down.
“Well, I shall have to walk. But that’s nothing. I’m in hard training.”
The girl’s eyes opened wide.
“Walk? That you certainly will not, except as far as the house; and that’s no great distance. It’s nearly dinner time too,”—with a glance upwards at the sun. “And—you have saved my life, you know. I’m a bad hand at making a speech, but—will you take for granted all I’d like to say?”
The other felt a little foolish. This, to him, was an entirely new experience. This girl, for instance, was quite unlike any he had ever known before. Her absolute self-possession, free from any trace of posing or self-consciousness—why he did not know what to make of the situation. But one thing pushed itself unpleasantly to the fore in his mind. He was being taken somewhere to be thanked—by a lot of other people, and he didn’t like being thanked. It made him feel a fool. The only thing to do was to pooh-pooh the whole incident; and yet—and yet—hang it, he did want to see some more of her, and wanted to see that some “some more” now, not put it off to some indefinite future time.