much. Personally I think a little drink, and I shall follow her example."
He followed the other man back into the hall, and glanced at his watch. It was nine o'clock, and at eleven they were still sitting there. Moreover, the whisky bottle that had been full was now empty.
It was when he perceived the fact that Granger announced his intention of going to bed. A very decent fellow, Sefton, he had decided: misjudged him badly. Bit of a fool: give no trouble, anyway. As a matter of fact he'd meant to be in bed before: it might happen any moment now. Might have happened while they were sitting there, which would have been a bit awkward. Oughtn't to have sat up so long. Once in bed bound to be a delay, and delay fatal.
He swayed a little: his brain was most confoundedly muzzy. Damned fellow Sefton must have a head like a copper boiler. And those blue eyes of his seemed to bore into one's brain.
He staggered and pulled himself together: no doubt about it, he'd had one too many.
"Good night ole boy," he remarked, unsteadily. "Show you round the bally farm to-morrow."
With a candle in his hand he lurched off to his room, whilst big Jim still sat motionless. Even after the door had closed he never moved, though his brain was busy. It was justice—primitive justice—if it succeeded. And if it didn't
A crash from Granger's room announced that he had upset the water jug. And then it came—a sudden terrible scream of mortal fear. It startled even big Jim himself, though his hand was steady as he reached for the gun beside him.
Simultaneously the doors of Granger's and Enid's rooms burst open. But it was on Granger that Jim Sefton's eyes were fixed.
"A mamba!" he yelled. "I've been bitten by a mamba! Quick! Oh! my God—be quick!"
"Where's the potassium permanganate?" said big Jim, and Enid darted across to a cupboard.
"It's empty," she cried in despair. "It was fall this morning, I know."
And once again Jim Sefton's blue eyes were fixed on Granger. His face was chalky : his shaking mouth gibbered inartlculate words.
"Who emptied it?" said Jim, in a terrible voice. "Who emptied it, Granger?"
And Granger cursed foully, only to begin raving once again for mercy. Into his fuddled brain had come the certainty that Jim knew: the certainty also that nothing could save him. It was he who had emptied the bottle of permanganate: it was he who had signed his own death warrant. How his plans had miscarried he had no idea—all that mattered was that they had.
A figure in pyjamas appeared in the door of Jack's room.
"What is it?" muttered the sick man, weakly. "What's happened?"
But no one answered him: no one even knew he was there. For the end was near, and Granger was not a pretty sight. And Enid, in spite of having loathed the man, was crying softly, though her brain was racing in a jumbled chaos of thought. What had Jim meant by asking who had emptied the bottle?
IT was Jim who took charge when it was over. It was Jim who went to the window of Granger's room and shot the snake inside by the light of the candle on the table. It was Jim who put Jack back to bed, and sat up with Enid till she fell asleep in her chair. And he was still sitting opposite her when the dawn came, so that the first thing she was conscious of as she woke were those vivid blue eyes of his.
But during the days that followed he said very little, and she asked no questions. And it was only as he was going, a fortnight later, that she could stand it no longer. Jack was fit: arrangements for disposing of the farm were in train: and then they were going back to England.
"Jim," she said, as she stood beside his horse, "there was some mystery that night. What was it?"
For a moment a tiny smile flickered over his lips.
"There is a native superstion my dear," he said, gravely, "which, like so many things of that sort, is founded on fact. They say that if you kill a snake, its mate will come to find it. Granger killed a mamba that afternoon: I killed the mate that night. You see, the dead snake was under his bed."
"But what can have induced him to put it there?" she cried.
"I wonder," answered big Jim Sefton.
He bent down suddenly and raised to his lips the hand lying on his horse's neck. Then he dug his heels in, and without a backward glance trotted off along the road that to a townsman's eye would have seemed impenetrable bush.
