Сердца трех / Hearts of Three

�Lie down, and be quiet!’ he repeated harshly. �You haven’t a second to lose.’

But she had eyes only for the dead snake. Her relief was patent; but Francis was no witness to it, for he was bending again to perform the classic treatment of snake-bite.

�You dare!’ she threatened him. �It’s only a baby labarri, and its bite is harmless. I thought it was a viperine. They look alike when the labarri is small.’

The constriction of the circulation by the tourniquet pained her, and she glanced down and discovered his handkerchief knotted around her leg.

�Oh, what have you done?’

A warm blush began to suffuse her face.

�But it was only a baby labarri,’ she reproached him.

�You told me it was a viperine,’ he retorted.

She hid her face in her hands, although the pink of flush burned furiously in her ears. Yet he could have sworn, unless it were hysteria, that she was laughing; and he knew for the first time how really hard was the task he had undertaken to put the ring of another man on her finger.

�And now, I suppose some of your gentry will shoot me full of holes because I don’t know a labarri from a viperine. You might call some of the farm hands down to do it. Or maybe you’d like to take a shot at me yourself.’

But she seemed not to have heard, for she had arisen with the quick litheness to be expected of so gloriously fashioned a creature, and was stamping her foot on the sand.

�It’s asleep my foot,’ she explained with laughter unhidden this time by her hands.

�You’re acting perfectly disgracefully,’ he assured her wickedly, �when you consider that I am the murderer of your uncle.’

Thus reminded, the laughter ceased and the color receded from her face.

�Better let me help,’ he suggested pleasantly.

�You beast!’ she flamed at him. �Step aside. Your shadow falls upon me.’

�Now you are delicious, charming,’ he girded, belying the desire that stirred compellingly within him to clasp her in his arms.