ards away, something crawled over the dry red sand. Under the amazing
brilliancy of the moon it was quite clear to Nakeesa what the thing was.
It was a great puff-adder; and the gentle vibration of the reptile's
scales against the sand, as it slowly crawled, had aroused her.

The moon shone bright against one side of the loathsome creature, making
clear beneath its searching rays the flat venomous head, the vile,
wicked eye, nay, even the very scales of the swollen serpent. Upon the
other side, as Nakeesa saw, a narrow band of ink-black shadow moved with
the slow motion of the reptile. All this Nakeesa noted instantly. What
enthralled her attention yet more was the direction in which the
puff-adder headed. It made directly for Sinikwe, attracted
instinctively by the promise of warmth. At any other time, probably,
the Bushman would have awakened--his instincts would have warned him;
but now, overcome by the debauch of flesh, he slept on.

Meanwhile, as the snake slowly approached her man, something like a
struggle arose in Nakeesa's breast. Conscience goes for little in the
wilds, yet something like conscience told her that if the puff-adder
reached Sinikwe and caused his death, hers was the blame. But, she
argued, he is a desert man and can surely protect himself. She ignored
wilfully his gorged, helpless slumber; she thought only of Kwaneet, of
her own wrongs. After all, human life is of small account with the
Bushman; he must take his risks. She had seen her own mother's corpse
half devoured by a lion; her brother had died disembowelled by a
buffalo's horn. What is death in the desert? Here was fate in the form
of a puff-adder. Why should she interfere with it? So reasoned Nakeesa
as the moments fled. The serpent reached Sinikwe; it crawled slowly,
slowly beneath a corner of his skin cloak, close to his breast and arm,
and lay still.

For two hours Nakeesa lay watching in a frozen silence the end of this
terrible business. At last Sinikwe stirred. The weight of his body
shifted heavily on to the snake; there was a struggle beneath the cloak,
a dreadful cry arose from the Bushman, and then, like a mad thing,
Sinikwe leapt to his feet. The hideous reptile, its long curved fangs
still fixed deep in the man's breast, hung on, as these snakes will do.
Sinikwe took the vile creature by the neck, tore it from its hold, and
flung it to earth. Nakeesa meanwhile had sprung up, as if from sleep,
and snatche