"A sort of mushroom, Sambo. Oh, a most excellent dinner dish they'd make!" she added, laughing.
And hungry Sambo heard her. Were these pretty things good to eat? He had seen not a few of them in the grass about the roads and fields. Here was a breakfast ready for him. He considered a little, the idea of cooking not entering his head. Neither Deborah nor de Mailly knew when he ceased to follow them, it merely occurring to them by the time they reached home that Sambo had not been with them for some time. Claude, who had found the way long in coming, deemed it only too short on the return. And Deborah, demurely realizing that she was perfectly happy, continued to talk to him in that tranquil manner which, from its apparent indifference and self-possession, seemed such an anomaly, considering her youth.
"May I ask the use of this?" asked de Mailly, curiously, holding out the spray of spotted-hemlock.
"I don't know its use. 'Tis what I am going to try to find out if the doctor does not come this morning. I am ignorant if it is as poisonous as water-hemlock. I will try to learn."
Claude bit his lip. "And if the doctor does come?"
"It will be most interesting. We are to try the effect of two alkaloids in one system, and I must note the different symptoms, the combined result, and the complications which ensue from the interaction."
"You give these—poisons—to some beast. Is it not so?"
Deborah hesitated for a little, finally replying, quietly, "A cat."
"And he will no doubt die?"
"No—perhaps not. That is our hope, monsieur. If we could discover one thing which might counterbalance the effect of another, can you not see that it might some time serve to save men's lives? It is unbecoming in me to speak of it, but did you not know that the liquid given you as medicine for your fever I distilled from the plant called monkshood? And did not that medicine help to restore you to health? And yet, sir, it was a virulent poison, ten drops of which would kill an animal."