Dead Man's Land Part 71

The two men drew back, and while the blacks shifted a little further away and close together watched, with their faces drawn with horror, the boys bent down and tore away the dead fronds of the fern.

"Here, it's all right," cried Dean. "Hooray, Mark! Here's your gun.

Why, they've only buried the stock and half the barrels."

For there, lightly covered with stones and sand, were the barrels of the missing gun, fully six inches quite exposed.

"Here, let me come," cried Mark.

"No; first find," cried Dean, seizing the rifle by the barrels and giving it a jerk which drew it right out, and then uttering a yell of horror he dropped it, for as he tugged a tiny snake thrust its head out of one of the barrels and opened its jaws menacingly, then closed them, and the sun shone upon its flickering forked tongue, which darted out again and again through the natural opening in the closed jaws.

"Ah! Take care!" cried Sir James; and the two blacks turned as if moved by the same impulse and scrambled to the nearest pile of stones, to stand there holding on to one another, their superst.i.tion strengthened by what they believed to be instant punishment being brought down upon the heads of those who had dared to disturb the resting-place of the dead.

"Oh, I say, Dean!" cried Mark, as he picked up the double rifle, noting as he raised it from the ground that the snake had shrunk back out of sight into its novel refuge. "I'll soon settle him," he said. "Yes, all right," he continued, as he raised the gun so that he could examine the breech. "It's all right; it's loaded. I'll soon finish him;" and raising the piece higher, holding it as if it were a pistol, he drew trigger, and a volley of echoes followed the report, the two blacks being already in full flight.

"Anybody see him go?" said Mark merrily, and as he spoke he let the rifle slide through his hands till he grasped the muzzle, while the b.u.t.t rested between his feet. "New way of killing snakes," cried the boy; and then with a look of horror, wild-eyed and strange, he held the muzzle as far from him as he could, half stunned by realising the fact that he had fired the wrong barrel, as he saw the little snake glide rapidly out of the mouth of the second barrel, play for a moment or two over his hands, and then drop in amongst the loose stones and disappear.

"Mark, my boy!" cried Sir James excitedly. "Don't say you are bitten!"

The boy drew a deep sigh, his face turning ghastly white the while, and then, "I must, father. It was only a sharp p.r.i.c.k, but--"

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.

THE DOCTOR'S LANCET.

There was a peculiar dreamy look in the injured boy's eyes, as he turned them from his father to Dean and back.

"Here, let me come," cried the doctor. "Let him sit down on that stone--feel faint, my lad?"

"No-o," faltered Mark; "only strange and queer. Is it a poisonous snake?"

"I don't know. I hope not," said the doctor. "I only had a glimpse of it, and it's gone. Where did you feel the p.r.i.c.k?"

"In this finger. No, no--don't touch it!"

"Nonsense! Be a man. I am not going to hurt you. Did either of you get a good sight of the snake?"

"I did, sir," said Buck, "and it must have been a poisonous one."

"Why must it?" said the doctor sharply.

"Because the n.i.g.g.e.rs run away as soon as they saw it, sir," said Dan.

"Look at them up yonder;" and he pointed to where the two blacks were perched on the top of the wall. "They know, sir."

"Oh, yes, they know a great deal," said the doctor, shortly, as he busied himself pressing the sides of a little speck of a wound which pierced the boy's skin, now with one nail, now with both at the same time, and making Mark wince.

"You are hurting him a good deal," said Sir James.

"Do him good," said the doctor, shortly, "and take off the faintness.

Now, Buck, I want to make sure," continued the doctor, who from the smattering of knowledge he had obtained from reading was looked up to by everyone present as being master of the situation in the emergency.

"What sort of a head had the snake?"

"Nasty-looking head, sir! and it kept sticking out its sting with two pyntes to it."

"Pooh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the doctor, as he busied himself over the tiny puncture. "But was it a broad spade-shaped head?"

"Spade-shaped, sir? What, square? Oh, no, it warn't that."

"Bah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the doctor. "I meant spade-shaped--the spade that you see on a pack of cards."

"I couldn't be sure, sir. It was so quick, you see. But I should say it was more like a diamond."

"Beg pardon, sir," cried Dan; "I think that the place ought to be sucked. I'll do it."

"Thanks. Good lad," said the doctor. "You are quite right;" and he gave the little sailor a quick nod as he took the advice himself, held Mark's index finger to his lips, and drew hard at the tiny puncture, trying to draw out any noxious matter that might have been left in the wound, and removing the finger from his lips from time to time to rid his mouth of any poison.

"Here, you, Dean," he said, upon one of these occasions, "slip that silk handkerchief from your neck, twist it a little, and now tie it round his arm just above the elbow. That's right--no, no, don't play with it--tie it as tightly as you can--never mind hurting him. I want to stop the circulation."

He placed his lips to the wound again and drew hard; then speaking once more--

"Harder. Now, you, Sir James; you are stronger. Tighten the ligature as much as you can. You, Dean, put your hand in my breast-pocket-- pocket-book. Open it and take out a lancet."

"There isn't one here, sir."

"Bah! No; I remember. Get out your knife, my boy."

"There's a lancet in that, sir, you know, and a corkscrew, and tweezers too. Here's the lancet, sir;" and the boy drew out the little tortoisesh.e.l.l instrument slipped into the handle of the handsome knife which his uncle had presented him with before the start.

"Now, then, Mark; I am going to operate."

"Very well, sir," said Mark, calmly enough. "You had better take the finger off close down to the joint, for fear the poison has got as far as that."

The doctor smiled.

"Is it absolutely necessary?" said Sir James anxiously.

The doctor gave him a peculiar look which Dean looked upon as horribly grim.

"I see two chaps who were bit by snakes out in 'Stralia, gentlemen,"

said Dan, "and one of them died; and they said that if there had been someone there who had known how to cut his arm off so as he shouldn't bleed to death, it would have saved his life."

"Kept the pison from running right through him, mate," growled Buck, with a look of sympathy at the injured lad.

"That's so, messmate," continued Dan; "but they sucked t'other one where he was stung for ever so long. He got better."

"Now, then," said the doctor sharply, "no more anecdotes, if you please;" and as he spoke he made a slight cut across the speck-like puncture with the keen-pointed lancet, so that the blood started out in a pretty good-sized bead.

"Hurt you, my lad?" he asked, while Dean looked on in horror.