r. All I know is that I have been sent here
to--" and here it broke off in a dreadful strangled scream as a pair of
strong hands clutched it firmly by the throat and dragged it writhing
into the open. Daphne sat helplessly looking on as her rescuer struggled
with the thing, which had wound its coils round his waist and leg, and
was trying hard to free its head and strike. He held the venomous head
at arm's-length, gripping its throat tight, while the foam slavered from
its distended jaws, but it was stronger than he, and, as he recognised
this, he urged Daphne to save herself while there was time.

She had already risen, as she had got over any tendency to faint, but
she had no intention of leaving him to his fate. She had just seen in a
pocket of his leather apron those big garden-shears which she had
noticed him plying with such marked incompetence, and it occurred to her
suddenly that they might be of some real service now. She ran up and,
watching her opportunity, succeeded in whipping them out. Then she
stepped behind the serpent, and forced the blades together just below
the part of its neck that was in her champion's grasp. There was a
highly unpleasant scrunch and jar as they closed, but she pressed with
all her strength, until the reptile's spine was cut through and its body
uncoiled itself from the young man and went writhing and rolling blindly
through the grass.

Daphne dropped the shears and got out of its way in sudden panic. "It's
not dead! I'm sure it isn't!" she cried to the stranger, whom she had
somehow ceased to think of as a spy.

"It is harmless enough now, fair lady," he said as he tossed its crested
head into the undergrowth, "thanks to your courage."

"I never killed anything before," she said. "I hated doing it, and--it
seems such a silly way to kill a snake!"

"It succeeded," he said, wondering how those small slim hands could have
had the strength. "I could not have held it much longer. You have saved
my life."

"I couldn't have," she said, "if you hadn't saved mine first. I know now
that you have only been watching and following me about as you have to
see that I didn't get into any danger?"

"So you were aware that I watched you?" he said.

Daphne laughed. "How could I help being?" she replied. "And of course I
guessed at once that you weren't a real gardener."

"What makes you suppose that?" he said.

"Well," she said, laughing again, "I happen to have seen you at work,
you kno