Antonio Ferdinand Xavier D’Souza, Goanese butler, heard and came.

“Mem-Sahib?” quoth he, at the door of the go-down.

“Bring a lamp quickly,” said Lenore de Warrenne in a level voice.

The worthy Antonio, fat, spectacled, bald and wheezy, hurried away and peremptorily bade the hamal[2], son of a jungle-pig, to light and bring a lamp quickly.

The hamal, respectfully pointing out to the Bootlair Sahib that the daylight was yet strong and lusty enough to shame and smother any lamp, complied with deliberation and care, polishing the chimney, trimming the wick, pouring in oil and generally making a satisfactory and commendable job of it.

Lenore de Warrenne, sick, faint, sinking, waited ... waited ... waited ... gripping the shelf and fighting against her over-mastering weakness for the life of the unborn child that, even in that awful moment, she prayed might be a daughter.

After many cruelly long centuries, and as she swayed to fall, the good Antonio entered with the lamp.  Her will triumphed over her falling body.

“Boy, I am standing on a snake!” said she coolly.  “Put the lamp—­”

But Antonio did not stay to “put” the lamp; incontinent he dropped it on the floor and fled yelling “Sap!  Sap!” and that the Mem-Sahib was bitten, dying, dead—­certainly dead; dead for hours.

And the brave soul in the little room waited ... waited ... waited ... gripping the shelf, and thinking of the coming daughter, and wondering whether she must die by snake-bite or fire—­unborn—­with her unhappy mother.  For the fallen lamp had burst, the oil had caught fire, and the fire gave no light by which she could see what was beneath her foot—­head, body, or tail of the lashing, squirming snake—­as the flame flickered, rose and fell, burnt blue, swayed, roared in the draught of the door—­did anything but give a light by which she could see as she bent over awkwardly, still gripping the shelf, one foot on the stool, further prevented from seeing by her loose draperies.

Soon she realized that in any case she could not see her foot without changing her position—­a thing she would not do while there was hope—­and strength to hold on.  For hope there was, inasmuch as she had not yet felt the stroke of the reptile’s fangs.

Again she reasoned calmly, though strength was ebbing fast; she must remain as she was till death by fire or suffocation was the alternative to flight—­flight which was synonymous with death, for, as her other foot came down and she stepped off the snake, in that instant it would strike—­if it had not struck already.

Meantime—­to call steadily and coolly again.

This time she called to the hamal, a Bhil, engaged out of compassion, and likely, as a son of the jungle’s sons, to be of more courage than the stall-fed butler in presence of dangerous beast or reptile.

“Hamal:  I want you,” she called coolly.