"Keep still!" interrupted a peremptory voice behind her, as a pair of swift unceremonious arms seized her round the waist, and by sheer force dragged her back a step, then held her tight-clasped to something that beat fast despite the calm tone. "Kill that snake, someone! There, right at her feet! It isn't a branch. I saw it move. Don't stir, Mrs. Gissing, it's all right."
It might be, but the heart she felt beat hard; and the one beneath his hand gave a bound and then seemed to stand still, as the sticks and staves, hastily caught up, smote furiously on her very dress, so close did certain death lie to her. There was a faint scent of lavender about that dress, about her curly hair, which Jim Douglas never forgot; just as he never forgot the passionate admiration which made his hands relax to an infinite tenderness, when she uttered no cry, no sound; when there was no need to hold her, so still did she stand, so absolutely in unison with the defiance of Fate which kept him steady as a rock. Surely no one in all his life, he thought, had ever stood so close to him, yet so far off!
"God bless my soul! My dear lady, what an escape!" The hurried faltering exclamation from a bystander heralded the holding up of a long limp rope of a thing hanging helplessly over a stick. It was the signal for a perfect babel. Many had seen the brute, but had thought it a branch, others had similar experiences of drowsy snakes scorched out of winter quarters in some hollow log, and all crowded round Mrs. Gissing, loud in praise of her coolness. Only she turned quickly to see who had held her; and found Major Erlton.
"The brute hasn't touched you, has he?" he began huskily, then broke into almost a sob of relief, "My God! what an escape!"
She glanced at him with the faint distaste which any expression of strong emotion showed toward her by a man always provoked, and gave one of her high irrelevant laughs.
"Is it? I may die a worse death. But I want him--where is he?"
"Slipped away from your gratitude, I expect," said the Collector. "But I'll betray him. It was the man who knew about the chupatties, Sir Theophilus; I don't know his name."
"Douglas," said the host. "He is in camp a mile or two down the jheel. I expect he has gone back. He seemed a nice fellow."
Mrs. Gissing made a moue. "I would not have been so grateful as all that! I would only have said 'Bravo' to him."
Her own phrase seemed to startle her, she broke off with a sudden wistful look in her wide blue eyes.