She grasped his arm. “Sit down,” she commanded, “here, on this log, and see.”
Her pale fright caught him. He obeyed, dragged off the low shoe and bared the tingling spot. The firm white flesh was puffing up around two tiny blue-rimmed punctures. He reached into his pocket, then remembered that he had no knife. As a next best thing he knotted his handkerchief quickly above the ankle, thrust a stick through the loop and twisted it till the ligature cut deeply, while she knelt beside him, her lips moving soundlessly, saying over and over to herself words like these: “I must not be frightened. He doesn’t realize the danger, but I do! I must be quite collected. It is a mile to the doctor’s. I might run to the house and send Unc’ Jefferson, but it would take too long. Besides, the doctor might not be there. There is no one to do anything but me.”
She crouched beside him, putting her hands by his on the stick and wrenching it over with all her strength. “Tighter, tighter,” she said. “It must be tighter.” But, to her dismay, at the last turn the improvised cord snapped, and the released stick flew a dozen feet away.
Her heart leaped chokingly, then dropped into hammer-like thudding. He leaned back on one arm, trying to laugh, but she noted that his breath came shortly as if he had been running. “Absurd!” he said, frowning. “How such—a fool thing—can hurt!”
Suddenly she threw herself on the ground and grasped his foot with both her hands. He could see her face twitch with shuddering, and her eyes dilating with some determined purpose.
“What are you going to do?”
“This,” she said, and he felt her shrinking lips, warm and tremulous, pressed hard against his instep.
He drew away sharply, with savage denial. “No—no! Not that! You shan’t! My lord—you shan’t!” He dragged his numbing foot from her desperate grasp, lifting himself, pushing her from him; but she fought with him, clinging, panting broken sentences:
“You must! It’s the only way. It was—a moccasin, and it’s deadly. Every minute counts!”