I shouted for Percy, and sang out for Moore to send up a couple of
hands, and whilst Nicholson kept an eye on his patient my chum told me
what had happened.
"He took up his knife. I set my teeth; but just as I thought he was
going to use it he dropped it, and before I could wink an eyelash he'd
nipped the jaws of the snake--just as he nipped your finger--bent four
inches of its neck right away from the arm and, with the fingers of the
other hand, swept round under the coils and unwound it. For a moment or
two he held it in the air, the jaws in between his finger and thumb, the
body coiling and twisting--I could hardly breathe--then he threw it away
where you saw it, and it lashed about like a live thing. It's done now;
what danger there was is over. Won't he be thankful?"
"We'll tell him directly he's round," I said. "My country, won't he be
pleased! He'll be a new man."
Nicholson, coming out of the cabin, sang out: "No, you won't, unless you
want to kill him. He's bad enough now, and he'll fancy the swelling is
due to poison, whatever we tell him. He must not know until he's well
again. As many people die of sheer fright, after being bitten, as from
the poison itself."
"Is that why you coiled the signal halyard round the groove?" we both
asked excitedly.
"Of course it was. He'll feel it under the bandage and think the
snake's still there. I sewed the bandage so that he couldn't take it
off to make certain. Don't you tell him till I give the word."
A very anxious week followed, for Mr. Scarlett was so ill that he had to
go aboard the _Intrepid_. Whilst he was away, several more letters came
from Jassim, and at last Jassim himself came aboard.
On the chance of his coming I had given very strict orders that no one
should say where Mr. Scarlett had gone, and when I took him all round
the _Bunder Abbas_ his face fell as he realized that he was not on
board. Not a word would he say about the snake, never so much as a hint
to Jaffa; but as he left the ship he spoke to him, looking at me, and
Jaffa repeated: "Twenty thousand rupees". I could not resist asking
him, through Jaffa (who, if he had a shrewd suspicion that he was the
red-bearded leader of the caravan, never mentioned it), how his son
was--the wounded man who had been carried through the gap.
At the question Jassim gave me a glance of such terrible hatred that I
knew at once that the poor chap was dead, and that he blamed me for it.
This could not help but worry me, and another worry came along about
this time: there was disquieting news from Jask. Mr. Fisher, the acting
political agent, had telegraphed across that the Baluchis were causing
trouble and constantly threatening to come down from the hills and
attack the place. The land wire had been cut in several places, and a
party of native employees had been beaten and robbed about twenty-five
miles to the eastward. He had borrowed a few of the border police from
the Mir of Old Jask, but they were such brigands and so much of a
nuisance that he had sent them back again.
It really made me angry to think of keeping Miss Borsen and Mrs. Fisher
there. I actually asked if the "_B.A._" could not go as soon as ever
her repairs had been effected, but Commander Duckworth shook his head.
"It's just as it always is at this time of year," he said. "Those
tribesmen keep on threatening, hoping to get 'backsheesh'. They do it
every year; but nothing will come of it. They won't risk their skins."
However, this did not relieve my anxiety. I seemed to have a personal
interest in little Miss Borsen, because, I suppose, she had come out
from England with me, and possibly because we had quarrelled.
One day Nicholson signalled across that he and Popple Opstein were
bringing Mr. Scarlett across that evening. They came, he looking
desperately ill, although his arm was practically well. When we four
were alone he pulled out another letter--Jassim had evidently soon found
where he had gone.
"He offers me twenty thousand rupees," he said wearily. "It's a lot of
money."
He thought that we should commence the same old arguments again, but,
Nicholson winking at me, I went into the cabin, unlocked my drawer, and
brought out the bracelet. I handed it to Nicholson, for it was "up" to
him to tell the good news. He simply laid it on Mr. Scarlett's thin
knees and said quietly: "It's been off your arm for ten days. I took it
off when you had the operation."
Mr. Scarlett shrank from it and clutched his arm. "But it's there--I can
feel it--I've felt it a hundred times in these last days."
Nicholson smiled, pulled up his sleeve, cut through the bandage, and
showed him the signal halyard.
Mr. Scarlett gave a wild look at each of us, dropped the snake on the
deck, bolted into the cabin, and we heard him sobbing like a child.