Half-way up the road to the Mess Wargrave looked back and saw an elephant heave into sight around a bend below the Dermots' house and plod heavily up to their gate. On the charjama—the passenger-carrying contrivance of wooden seats on the pad with footboards hanging by short ropes—sat a lady and two European men holding white umbrellas up to keep off the vertical rays of the noonday sun. When the animal sank to its knees in front of the bungalow Wargrave saw the girl—it could only be Miss Benson—spring lightly to the ground before either of her companions could dismount and offer to help her. Her big sunhat hid her face, and at that distance Wargrave could only see that she was small and slight, as she walked up the garden path.
When the signallers' afternoon practice was over the subaltern passed across the parade ground to the Political Officer's house. When he entered the pretty drawing-room, bright with the gay colours of chintz curtains and cushions, he found the strangers present, one man talking to Mrs. Dermot at her tea-table, the other chatting with the Colonel, while Burke was installed beside a girl seated in a low cane chair and dressed in a smart, hand-embroidered Tussore silk dress, suede shoes and silk stockings. Little Brian stood beside her with one arm affectionately round her neck, while Eileen was perched in her lap. But when Frank appeared the mite wriggled down to the floor and rushed to him.
The subaltern was presented to Miss Benson, her father and Carter, the Sub-Divisional Officer or Civil Service official of the district. When he sat down Eileen clambered on to his knee and seriously interfered with his peaceful enjoyment of his tea; but while he talked to her he was watching Miss Benson over the small golden head. She was astonishingly pretty, with silky black hair curving in natural waves, dark-bordered Irish grey eyes fringed with long, thick lashes, a rose-tinted complexion, a pouting, red-lipped mouth and a small nose with the most fascinating, provoking suspicion of a tip-tilt. She was as small and daintily-fashioned as her hostess; and Wargrave thought it marvellous that their forgotten outpost on the face of the mountains should hold two such pretty women at the same time. His comrade Burke was evidently acutely conscious of Muriel Benson's attractions, and, his pleasantly ugly face aglow with a happy smile, he was flirting as openly and outrageously with her as she with him.
"Sure, it's a cure for sore eyes ye are, Miss Flower Face," he said. "That's the name I christened her with the first moment I saw her, Wargrave. Doesn't it fit her?" Then turning to the girl again, he continued, "Aren't you ashamed av yourself for laving me to pine for a sight av ye all these weary months?"
Miss Benson could claim to be Irish on her mother's side and so was a ready-witted match for the doctor's Celtic exuberance; though to Wargrave watching it seemed that Burke's easy banter cloaked a deeper feeling.
Drawn into their conversation Frank found the girl to be natural and unaffected, without a trace of conceit, gifted with a keen sense of humour and evidently as full of the joy of living as a school-boy. He thought her laugh delightfully musical, and it was frequently and readily evoked by Burke's droll remarks or the quaint oracular sayings from the self-possessed elf on Wargrave's knee. Her admiration of and genuine affection for Mrs. Dermot was very evident when Noreen joined their group.
The subaltern, covertly and critically observing her, could hardly believe the tales which their hostess had previously told him of the courage and ability that this small and dainty girl had frequently shown. But only a few minutes' conversation with her father convinced Frank that he was an amiably weak and incompetent individual, more fitted to be a recluse and a bookworm than a roamer in wild jungles where his work brought him in contact with strange peoples and constant danger. It was evident that the reputation which his large section of the Terai Forest bore as being well managed and efficiently run was not due to him and that somebody more capable had the handling of the work. Hardly had Wargrave come to this conclusion and begun to believe that the stories that he had heard of the daughter's business ability and powers of organisation were true when he was given a very convincing proof of her courage and coolness in danger.
After tea, as the sun was nearing its setting and a deliciously cool breeze blew down from the mountains, a move was made to the garden, where the party sat in a circle and chatted. When evening came and the dusk rose up from the world below, blotting out the light lingering on the hills, Mrs. Dermot made her children say goodnight to the company and bore them reluctant away to their beds. As the darkness deepened the servants brought out a small table and placed a lamp on it, and by its light carried round drinks to the men of the party. Miss Benson was leaning back in a cane chair and chatting lazily with Burke, who sat beside her. She had one shapely silk-clad leg crossed over the other, and a small foot resting on the grass. Opposite her sat Colonel Dermot and Wargrave. As the brilliant tropic stars came out in the velvety blackness of the sky occasional silences fell on the party. A tale of Burke's was interrupted by the Political Officer's voice, saying in a quiet forceful tone:
"Miss Benson, please do not move your foot. Remain perfectly still. A snake is passing under your chair. Steady, Burke! Keep still!"
There was a terror-stricken hush. Frank looked across in horror. The lamplight barely showed in the shadow under the chair a deadly hill-viper writhing its way out within a few inches of the small foot firmly planted in its dainty, high-heeled shoe. He looked at the motionless girl. Less pale than the men about her she sat quietly, smiling faintly and apparently not frightened by the Death almost touching her. One pink hand lay without a tremor in her lap, but the other rested on the arm of her chair and the knuckles showed white as the fingers gripped the bamboo tightly. She did not even glance down. But the men, frozen with dread, watched the shadowy writhing line passing her foot slowly, all too slowly, until it had wriggled out into the centre of the circle of motionless beings. Then Colonel Dermot sprang up. Seizing his light bamboo chair in his powerful grip he whirled it aloft and brought it crashing down on the viper, shattering the chair but smashing the reptile's spine in half a dozen places.