I did feel something, just that first moment." He laughed uncertainly.
"It's queer. My foot's gone fast asleep."

Every remnant of color left her face. She had known a negro child who
had died of a water-moccasin's bite some years before--the child of a
house-servant. It had been wading in the creek in the gorge. The doctor
had said then that if one of the other children....

She grasped his arm. "Sit down," she commanded, "here, on this log, and
see."

Her pale fright caught him. He obeyed, dragged off the low shoe and
bared the tingling spot. The firm white flesh was puffing up around two
tiny blue-rimmed punctures. He reached into his pocket, then remembered
that he had no knife. As a next best thing he knotted his handkerchief
quickly above the ankle, thrust a stick through the loop and twisted
it till the ligature cut deeply, while she knelt beside him, her lips
moving soundlessly, saying over and over to herself words like these: "I
must not be frightened. He doesn't realize the danger, but I do! I must
be quite collected. It is a mile to the doctor's. I might run to the
house and send Unc' Jefferson, but it would take too long. Besides, the
doctor might not be there. There is no one to do anything but me."

She crouched beside him, putting her hands by his on the stick and
wrenching it over with all her strength. "Tighter, tighter," she said.
"It must be tighter." But, to her dismay, at the last turn the
improvised cord snapped, and the released stick flew a dozen feet away.

Her heart leaped chokingly, then dropped into hammer-like thudding. He
leaned back on one arm, trying to laugh, but she noted that his breath
came shortly as if he had been running. "Absurd!" he said, frowning.
"How such--a fool thing--can hurt!"

Suddenly she threw herself on the ground and grasped his foot with both
her hands. He could see her face twitch with shuddering, and her eyes
dilating with some determined purpose.

"What are you going to do?"

"This," she said, and he felt her shrinking lips, warm and tremulous,
pressed hard against his instep.

He drew away sharply, with savage denial. "No--no! Not that! You shan't!
My lord--you shan't!" He dragged his numbing foot from her desperate
grasp, lifting himself, pushing her from him; but she fought with him,
clinging, panting broken sentences:

"You must! It's the only way. It was--a moccasin, and it's deadly. Every
minute counts!"

"I won't. No, stop! How do you know? It