"Listen," said Mrs. de Warrenne, "and have no fear, brave Bhil. I have
_caught_ a snake. Get a knife quickly and cut off its head while I
hold it."

The man glancing up, appeared to suppose that his mistress held the
snake on the shelf, hurried away, and rushed back with the cook's big
kitchen-knife gripped dagger-wise in his right hand.

"Do you see the snake?" she managed to whisper. "Under my foot!
Quick! It is moving ... moving ... moving _out_."

With a wild Bhil cry the man flung himself down upon his hereditary
dread foe and slashed with the knife.

Mrs. de Warrenne heard it scratch along the floor, grate on a nail,
and crush through the snake.

"Aré!! Dead, Mem-Sahib!! Dead!! See, I have cut off its head! Aré!!!!
Wah!! The brave mistress!----"

As she collapsed, Mrs. de Warrenne saw the twitching body of a large
cobra with its head severed close to its neck. Its head had just
protruded from under her foot and she had saved the unborn life for
which she had fought so bravely by just keeping still.... She had won
her brief decoration with the Cross by--keeping still. (Her husband
had won his permanent right to it by extreme activity.) ... Had she
moved she would have been struck instantly, for the reptile was, by
her, uninjured, merely nipped between instep and floor.

Having realized this, Lenore de Warrenne fainted and then passed from