“What snake was it?” I asked.
“The deadly grey sort,” he answered, adding: “Don’t look so frightened, Maya, I know a cure. Come to the camp, quick!”
In two minutes we reached it, and the señor had snatched a sharp knife and a powder-flask.
“Now, friend,” he said, handing me the knife, “cut deep, since it is life or death for me and there are no arteries in the top of the wrist.”
Seeing what had come about, Zibalbay held the señor’s hand and I cut twice. He never winced, but at each slash Maya groaned. Then, having let the blood fall till it would run no more, we poured powder into the wound, as much as will lie on a twenty cent piece, and fired it. It went off in a puff of white smoke, leaving the flesh beneath black and charred.
“Now, as we have no brandy, there is nothing more to be done except to wait,” said the señor, with an attempt at a smile; but Zibalbay, going to a bag, produced from it some cuca paste.
“Eat this,” he said, “it is better than any fire-water.”
The señor took the stuff and began to swallow it, till presently I saw that he could force no more down, for a paralysis seemed to be creeping over him; his throat contracted, and his eyelids fell as though weighed upon by irresistible sleep. Now, notwithstanding our remedies, seeing that the poison had got hold of him, we seized him by the arms and began to walk him to and fro, encouraging him at the same time to keep a brave heart and fight against death.
“I am doing my best,” he answered feebly; then his mind began to wander, and at length he fell down and his eyes shut.
A great fear and horror seized me, for I thought that he was about to die, and with them a kind of rage because I was impotent to save him. Already, to tell the truth, I was jealous of the Lady Maya, and now my jealousy broke out in bitter and unjust words.