“No!”
“He says that she has died from snake-bite. I believe him, too. I saw a boy die on the Etheridge from snake-bite, and he looked as she does now; besides that, there is not a scratch or bruise on her body, so she couldn't have received any hurt unless it was an internal one when she was thrown. Here's the place,” and then he started back, for lying at the foot of the tree was the panting, trembling figure of Nell Lawson.
She had tried to get there before them to efface all traces of her deadly work.
“What are you doing here, Mrs. Lawson?” said Ballantyne, sharply; “we sent over for you; don't you know what has happened?”
The strange hysterical “yes” that issued from her pallid lips caused Ballantyne to turn his keen grey eyes upon her intently. Then something of the truth must have flashed across his mind, for he walked up to the tree and looked into the tin.
“Good God!” he said, “poor little woman!” and then he called to Haughton. “Come here, and see what killed her!”
Haughton looked, and a deadly horror chilled his blood: lying in the bottom of the tin was a thick, brownish-red death adder. It raised its hideous, flatted head for a moment, then lowered it, and lay there regarding them with its deadly eye.
“How did it get there?” he asked.
Ballantyne pointed to Nell Lawson, who now stood and leant against a tree for support.
Haughton sprang to her side and seized her hands.