“If that man—” she began.
Suddenly she sprang up with a little cry which turned almost into a scream. From a look of humorous indignation, her face suddenly assumed an expression of absolute terror. She shrank away.
“There’s something soft in the bed!” she shrieked. “I felt it with my hand!”
They all looked towards the cot. Quest held up the lantern. They distinctly saw a movement under the bedclothes. The Inspector, stooping down, suddenly entered the tent.
“Say, what’s wrong here?” he demanded.
“There’s something in Laura’s bed,” Quest muttered. “Here, give me the camp-stool.”
He stole towards the bed, gripping the camp-stool firmly with his right hand, and slowly turning down the bedclothes with the feet of the chair. Suddenly there was a piercing scream. A huge snake, coiled and quivering for the spring, lifted its head. Even Quest seemed for the moment nerveless. Then from the doorway came the sharp report of a revolver, and the snake fell, a limp, inert thing. They all looked at the Professor as though fascinated. He came a step farther into the tent, the revolver still smoking in his hand. Standing over the snake, he deliberately fired again and again into the body.
“I think,” he remarked, in his usual calm tones, “that we may consider the creature now beyond any power of doing harm. You will be interested to hear,” he continued, bending over the remains of the creature, “that this is an exceedingly rare species, a sort of second cousin to the rattlesnake found only in this part of the world and fatally poisonous.”
“But how could it have got there?” Lenora faltered.
The Professor shook his head gravely.