Let him die that Lucille's honour, Lucille's happiness, Lucille's welfare, might live--and he kissed the hilt of the Sword as he had so often done in childhood. Having removed boots, leggings and socks, he lay down on the settee--innocent of bedding and pillows, pulled over him the coat that had been rolled and strapped trooper-fashion behind the saddle and fell asleep....

And dreamed that he was shut naked in a tiny cell with a gigantic python upon whose yard-long fangs he was about to be impaled and, as usual, awoke trembling and bathed in perspiration, with dry mouth and throbbing head, sickness, and tingling extremities.

The wind had got up and had blown out the candle which should have lasted till dawn!...

As he lay shaking, terrified (uncertain as to whether he were a soul in torment or a human being still alive), and debating as to whether he could get off the couch, relight the candle, and close the windward window, he heard a sound that caused his heart to miss a beat and his hair to rise on end. A strange, dry rustle merged in the sound of paper being dragged across the floor, and he knew that he _was_ shut in with a snake, shut up in a _blue room_, cut off from the matches on the table, and doomed to lie and await the Death he dreaded more than ten thousand others--or, going mad, to rush upon that Death.

_He was shut in with the SNAKE_. At last it had come for him in its own concrete form and had him bound and gagged by fascination and fear--in the Dark, the awful cruel Dark. No more mere myrmidons. _The SNAKE ITSELF_.

He tried to scream and could not. He tried to strike out at an imaginary serpent-head, huge as an elephant, that reared itself above him--and could not.

He could not even draw his bare foot in under the overcoat. And steadily the paper dragged across the floor ... Was it approaching?

Was it progressing round and round by the walls? Would the Snake find the bed and climb on to it? Would it coil round his throat and gaze with-luminescent eyes into his, and torture him thus for hours ere thrusting its fangs into his brain? Would it coil up and sleep upon his body for hours before doing so, knowing that he could not move?

Here were his Snake-Dreams realized, and in the actual flesh he lay awake and conscious, and could neither move nor cry aloud!

In the Dark he lay bound and gagged, in a blue-walled room, and the Snake enveloped him with its Presence, and he could in no wise save himself.

Oh, G.o.d, why let a sentient creature suffer thus? He himself would have shot any human being guilty of inflicting a t.i.the of the agony on a pariah dog. There could _be_ no G.o.d!... and then the beams of the rising moon fell upon the blade of the Sword, making it shine like a lamp, and, with a roar as of a charging lion, Damocles de Warrenne sprang from the bed, seized it by the hilt, and was aware, without a tremor, of a cobra that reared itself before him in the moonlight, swaying in the Dance of Death.

With a mere flick of the sword he laid the reptile twitching on the floor--and for a few minutes was madder with Joy than ever in his life he had been with Fear.

_For Fear was gone. The World of Woe had fallen from his shoulders.

The Snake was to him but a wretched reptile whose head he would crush ere it bruised his heel. He was sane--he was safe--he was a Man again, and ere many days were past he would be the husband of Lucille and the master of Monksmead._

"Oh, G.o.d forgive me for a blind, rebellious worm," he prayed. "Forgive me, and strike not this cup from my lips. You would not punish the blasphemy of a madman? I _cannot_ pray in ordered forms, but I beg forgiveness for my hasty cry 'There is on G.o.d' ..." and then pressed the Sword to his lips--the Sword that, under G.o.d, had overthrown the Snake for ever, saved his reason--and given him Lucille....

With the Sword in his hand he lay on the bed once more, and slept the sweet, dreamless sleep of a healthy, happy child. In the morning, when he awoke, his eyes fell upon the still living cobra that appeared to watch him with the hate of a baffled Lucifer as it lay broken-backed, impotent, and full of vicious fury.

Rising, Damocles de Warrenne stepped across to the reptile, and, with a quick s.n.a.t.c.h, seized it behind the head and raised it from the ground.

Staring into its baleful, evil-looking eyes, he remarked:--

"Well, mine ancient enemy and almost victor! I'm not of a particularly vengeful disposition, but I fancy a few of your brethren have got to die before I leave India. Why, you poor wretched worm, you miserable maggot,--to think what I have _suffered_" and he angrily dashed it on the ground and spurned it with his foot.

"Easy to do that when your back's broken, you think?" he continued.

"Right-O, my lad, wait till I find your mate, and we'll see. Hand to hand, no weapons--my quickness and strength against his quickness and venom. Snakes! The paltriest things that crawl"--and he kicked the reptile into a corner and burst into song as he busied himself about preparations for washing, food for himself and the camel, and--_return_.

After enough food to hearten them both for the thirty-mile journey he would go as fast as camel's legs could move to Lucille and the announcement that would send her frantic with joy. He would take her in his arms--then they would waltz for an hour to keep themselves from behaving like lunatics.... Fear was dead! The SNAKE was dead--killed by the SWORD, the Sword that Lucille had brought, and thereby saved him!

Madness was dead! Joy, Peace, Sanity, Health were come--the wedding-bells were trembling to burst into peals of joyous announcement.

He would, for Lucille's sake and the names of de Warrenne and Stukeley, show whether he was a Coward or a snake-fearing Lunatic, an epileptic, an unfit-to-marry monstrosity and freak. He would show the Harley Street physicians how much he feared snakes, and would challenge them to an undertaking which would give them food for thought before acceptance....

Where were his boots? He must fly to Lucille!...

And then the galloping hoofs of a horse were heard thudding towards the hut, and, hastening to the door, he saw Lucille whipping a lathered horse.

Rushing towards her he shouted:--

"Will you marry me to-morrow? Will you marry me to-day, Lucille?" and, as she pulled her horse in, he darted back into the room and reappeared twirling a twitching cobra by its tail, and laughing uproariously....

Lucille appeared to be about to faint as he dropped it, seized her in his arms, and said:--

_"Darling, I am cured! I have not the slightest fear of snakes. The Sword has saved me. I am a Man again."_

He told her all as she sat laughing and sobbing for joy and the dying snake lay at their feet.

In her heart of hearts Lucille determined that the wedding should take place immediately, so that if this were but a temporary respite, the result of the flash of daring inspired by the Sword, she would have the right to care for him for the rest of his life ... She would----

"Look!" she suddenly shrieked, and pointed to where, in the doorway, cutting them off from escape, was the mate of the cobra that lay mangled before them. Had the injured reptile in some way called its mate--or were they regular inhabitants of this deserted hut?

It was Lucille's first experience of cobras and she shuddered to see the second--evidently comprehending, aggressive, vengeful--would it spring from there ... and the Sword lay on the bed, out of reach.

Dam arose with a laugh, picked up his heavy boot as he did so, and, all in one swift movement, hurled it at the half-coiled swaying creature, with the true aim of the first-cla.s.s cricketer and trained athlete; then, following his boot with a leap, he s.n.a.t.c.hed at the tail of the coiling, thrashing reptile and "cracked" the snake as a carter cracks a whip--whereafter it dangled limp and dead from his hand!

Lucille shrieked, paled, and sprang towards him.

"Oh, Dam!" she cried, "how _could_ you!"

"Pooh, Kiddy," he replied. "I'm going to invite the Harley Street cove to have a match at that--and I'm going to give a little exhibition of it on the lawn at Monksmead--to all the good folk who witnessed my disgrace.... What's a snake after all? It's _my_ turn now;" and Lucille's heart was at rest and very thankful. This was not a temporary "cure". Oh, thank G.o.d for her inspiration anent the Sword ... Thank G.o.d, thank G.o.d!...

SEVEN YEARS AFTER.

A beautiful woman, whose face is that of one whose soul is full of peace and joy, pa.s.ses up the great staircase of the stately mansion of Monksmead. Slowly, because her hand holds that of a chubby youth of five, a picture of st.u.r.dy health, strength and happiness. They pa.s.s beneath an ancient Sword and the boy wheels to the right, stiffens himself, brings his heels together, and raises a fat little hand to his forehead in solemn salute. The journey is continued without remark until they reach the day nursery, a big, bright room of which a striking feature is the mural decoration in a conventional pattern of entwined serpents, the number of brilliant pictures of snakes, framed and hung upon the walls, and two gla.s.s cases, the one containing a pair of stuffed cobras and the other a finely-mounted specimen of a boa-constrictor (which had once been the pride of the heart of a Folkestone taxidermist).

"Go away, Mitthis Beaton," says the small boy to a white-haired but fresh-looking and comely old dame; "I'se not going to bed till Mummy hath tolded me about ve bwacelet again."

"But I've told you a _thousand_ times, Dammykins," says the lady.

"Well, now tell me ten hundred times," replies the young man coolly, and attempts to draw from the lady's wrist a huge and remarkable bracelet.

This uncommon ornament consists of a great ruby-eyed gold snake which coils around the lady's arm and which is pierced through every coil by a platinum, diamond-hilted sword, an exact model of the Sword which hangs on the staircase.

"You tell _me_, Sonny, for a change," suggests the lady.

"Velly well," replies the boy.... "Vere was once a Daddy and a hobberell gweat Thnake always bovvered him and followed him about and wouldn't let him gone to thleep and made him be ill like he had eaten too much sweets, and the doctor came and gave him lotths of meddisnin.

Then he had to wun away from the Thnake, but it wunned after him, and it wath jutht going to kill him when Mummy bwoughted the Thword and Daddy killed the Thnake all dead. And I am going to have the Thword when I gwow up, but vere aren't any more bad Thnakes. They is all good now and Daddy likes vem and I likes vem. Amen."

"_I_ never said _Amen_, when I told you the story, Sonny," remarks the lady.

"Well you can, now I have tolded you it," permits her son. "It means _bus_[32]--all finished. Mitthis Beaton thaid tho. And when I am as big as Daddy I'm going to be the Generwal of the Queenth Gweyth and thay '_Charge!_' and wear the Thword."

Lucille de Warrenne here smothers conversation in the manner common to worshipping mothers whose prodigies make remarks indicative of marvellous precocity, in fact absolutely unique intelligence.

EPILOGUE.