"Yes, quite flat, and to raise the bottom of the flap gently an inch or two. This would enable me to see him without being seen, if I did it without noise. I dropped down quite softly. Do you remember my death in 'Camille'?" Renfrew nodded. "Almost like that. But the rose-coloured stuff rustled again. I wished I hadn't put it on. I raised the flap very slightly and peeped out. Do you know what I felt like just then, Desmond?" "What?" "Just like a snake in ambush. When my cloak rustled, it was the grass against my body. I lay in cover, and could see my enemy like a creature in a forest, or a reptile in scrub." She glanced round at the bushes and the densely growing palms. "Yes, I lay there like a snake in the grass." She stretched herself out on the rug as she spoke, with her head towards Renfrew and her eyes fastened on his. "I saw first the feet of the man close to my eyes. His feet were almost black and bare. His legs were bare. My glance travelled up him, and I saw that his chest and his arms were bare too. He was clothed in a sort of loose rough garment, the colour of sacking, that fell into a kind of hood behind; and he looked enormously powerful. That struck me very much--his power." "Did you see his face?" "Quite well. It was the face of a man watching and listening with the closest attention. He was smiling slightly, too, as if something that had just happened had satisfied him. I knew he had heard the rustle of my robe as I slipped to the ground." "But why should that please him?" "It told him that I was there, that I was attentive too." Renfrew's face slightly darkened. "As I looked, I saw what he was holding in his hands." "What was it--a dagger--a staff?" "A serpent." Renfrew could not repress an exclamation. "Very large and striped. Its skin was like shot silk in the moonlight. It writhed softly between his hands, and turned its flat head from side to side. It seemed to be trying to bend down towards where I lay. Its tongue shot out like a length of riband out of one of those wooden winders that you buy in cheap shops. I should think its body was quite five feet long, and its colour seemed to change as it turned about. Sometimes it was pink, then it looked dull green and almost black. Once it wriggled down so near to the ground that I could see two fangs in its open mouth like hooks, and the roof of its mouth was flesh colour." "How abominable!" said Renfrew, softly. "I didn't feel it so at all," Claire said. "I wanted it to come to me,--back into the grass where such things are safe. But the man wouldn't let it go. He thrust it into his breast. He wanted to have his hands free." "Good God, Claire--what for? Did he--?" She smiled at his sudden violence, which showed his interest.