"He wasn't bit in the face, or on the hand."
"How does that matter?" demands Sharpe.
She gives him a look of scorn.
Then, ignoring her spouse, she says, as if continuing her speech to Lady Ruth:
"The dog's teeth went through several thicknesses of woolen cloth before entering the skin. The fabric very probably absorbed the poison. A rattlesnake's fangs are a different thing; they cut through the cloth and the poison is then injected from the hollow teeth or fangs."
"Oh!"
They have reached the smithy, and, standing in the door-way, witness a singular scene.
The smith is a brawny native Maltese, with a form a Hercules might envy. He has just taken from the fire a slender rod of iron, one end of which is hissing hot, even red.
With this he advances upon John Craig, who has laid his arm, bared almost to the shoulder, upon a high window ledge.
Then the iron just touches the flesh, and a little gust of white smoke puffs up.