ly still. A
snake is passing under your chair. Steady, Burke! Keep still!"

There was a terror-stricken hush. Frank looked across in horror. The
lamplight barely showed in the shadow under the chair a deadly
hill-viper writhing its way out within a few inches of the small foot
firmly planted in its dainty, high-heeled shoe. He looked at the
motionless girl. Less pale than the men about her she sat quietly,
smiling faintly and apparently not frightened by the Death almost
touching her. One pink hand lay without a tremor in her lap, but the
other rested on the arm of her chair and the knuckles showed white as
the fingers gripped the bamboo tightly. She did not even glance down.
But the men, frozen with dread, watched the shadowy writhing line
passing her foot slowly, all too slowly, until it had wriggled out into
the centre of the circle of motionless beings. Then Colonel Dermot
sprang up. Seizing his light bamboo chair in his powerful grip he
whirled it aloft and brought it crashing down on the viper, shattering
the chair but smashing the reptile's spine in half a dozen places.

The other men had risen from their seats; but the girl remained seated
and said quietly:

"Thank you very much, Colonel, for warning me. I might easily have moved
my foot and trodden on the snake. I've seen so many of the horrid things
in camp lately. Now, Captain Burke, I'm sorry that the interruption
spoiled your story. Please go on with it."

Her coolness silenced the men, who were breaking into exclamations of
relief and congratulation. Even her father sat down again calmly.

But Burke's enthusiastic admiration of her courage found an outlet at
Mess that night when he recounted the adventure to Major Hunt and
appealed to Wargrave for confirmation of the story of her plucky
behaviour. Later in his room as he was going to bed Frank smiled at the
recollection of the Irishman's exuberant expressions; but he confessed
to himself that the girl's calm courage was worthy of every praise.

"She is certainly brave," he thought. "I'm not surprised at old Burke's
infatuation. She is decidedly pretty. What lovely eyes she's got--and
what a provokingly attractive little nose! Well, the doctor's a lucky
man if she marries him. She seems awfully nice. Violet will certainly
have two very charming women friends in the station if she hits it off
with them."

But as his eyes rested on her pictured face his heart misgave him; for
he remembered that she ha