Matters had been going very smoothly at the Palace of late, and Sir Dugald had the satisfaction of knowing that all the clauses of the projected treaty had been in substance agreed to. It now only remained to draw it up in formal shape, and to ratify it by the signatures, or rather seals, of the contracting parties. While the draughtsmen on both sides were busy reducing the notes taken during Sir Dugald’s audiences of the King into suitably involved phraseology, the members of the Mission enjoyed a short holiday. They made several expeditions into the districts lying around the city, and one day the King invited the gentlemen of the party to visit a summer-palace which he had erected on a spur of the hills some fifteen miles away. Mr Hicks, who had remained doggedly at his post in spite of the rebuff he had received, and contrived to glean sufficient news from his talks with Fath-ud-Din and the gossip of the Mission servants to fill the requisite number of columns per week for his paper when supplemented by his own lively imagination, was to be of the party, and the younger men anticipated some amusement in baffling his insatiable curiosity. They rode off in high spirits, the outward expression of which was modified in deference to Sir Dugald, to whom the excursion appeared in a light which was anything but pleasurable; and Lady Haigh and Georgia resigned themselves to a long, slow, quiet day. It was not one of the days on which Georgia visited her patient at the Palace, and therefore Lady Haigh and she wrote up their diaries with great industry, compiled several lengthy descriptive letters for the benefit of friends at home, and filled in odd corners of time with reading and talking. As the afternoon wore on, Lady Haigh went to remind the cook to make a particular kind of cake, likely to be appreciated after a long, dusty ride, for tea, and Georgia was left alone on the terrace.
As she sat there reading, the noise of horses’ feet in the outer court came to her ears, and she dropped her book, wondering whether the party had already returned. Presently Fitz Anstruther made his appearance under the archway which furnished a means of communication between the two courtyards, and catching sight of Georgia on the terrace, hurried towards her, followed by Dr Headlam. Fitz had something in his hand, carefully wrapped up in leaves and tied with wisps of grass, and as he reached the top of the steps he deposited it at Georgia’s feet.
“There, Miss Keeling,” he cried, in high delight, “I’ve got a spotted viper for you, for the collection! He’s a really fine beast; that measly old specimen the doctor got hold of hasn’t a look-in compared with him. See him, now,” and he unrolled the wrappings and displayed, as he said, a remarkably good specimen of the deadliest snake known to Kubbet-ul-Haj. It was only about twenty-seven inches long, but the spots, from which the Mission had given it its hopelessly unscientific name, were unusually brilliant.
“You very nearly had the chance of labelling him as a murderer,” Fitz went on, holding up the snake’s head and examining its fangs with the air of a connoisseur. “He reared up suddenly, just behind North, and had his head stretched out to strike. North was leaning on his elbow on the cushions, and when he saw all the Ethiopians staring at him as pale as death, he turned round. There was no time to move away, and he cut at the thing with his knife and missed. We were eating fruit just then, all smothered in snow from the hills. Stratford had his revolver out in a moment, and was going to fire, but I yelled out to him to stop. I didn’t want the skin spoilt, and I knew that a shot at that distance would smash the head all to smithereens. I had my riding-crop handy, and I jumped up and managed to catch the beast such a whack that it broke his spine or something. Anyhow, he was killed, and I brought him home all the way on purpose for you, Miss Keeling.”
He reared up suddenly, just behind North, and had his head stretched out to strike.
Georgia had turned pale and stepped back a little as Fitz looked up for her approval. Seeing her hesitation, Dr Headlam interposed.
“It really was very neatly done, Miss Keeling, though it was a risky thing, both for Anstruther and North. When I saw the crop come down, I could hardly believe that in his ardour for science Anstruther had not sacrificed North. It was a frightfully near business.”
“Who cares about North?” Fitz wanted to know. “It’s a jolly good specimen, Miss Keeling, and your beast is better than the doctor’s, at any rate. Your collection will take the cake now, I know.”
“Must it be stuffed?” asked Georgia, with unwonted timidity. “I don’t like it. It—it frightens me.”