Chapter LIV. A Case of Snakebite.

On the day following Edgar Paget's hasty summons home Miss Fitzroy was considered sufficiently recovered to go out; so, leaning on Tom Biglow's arm, with Mrs. Wilks following under a load of cushions and lotion bottles, she walked as far as the bit of natural bush that graced the otherwise barren-looking neighbourhood of Tarragut.

There she halted; Mrs. Wilks and Tom contrived a couch of boughs and pillows, and she lay thereon. The couch was built against a large hollow log that had lain there undisturbed for years. Mr. Wilks told his wife afterwards that she might have known the almost certain result of such a piece of mad-page 349ness as that, but she asked him how she was to be expected to know there was a snake in the log, she who hid never even seen a snake in her life, save once when she went to the Melbourne Museum?

The Tarragut region was certainly very free from venomous things. Save this bit of bush spoken of, there was nothing to encourage such. The enterprising reptile that bit Madge Fitzroy was probably the only one in the district, a hermit snake who had chosen this hollow log as an abiding-place for his old age, where he might dwell in peace and reflect on the folly of his first ancestor in having anything to say to a woman.

Clearly, however, he himself was not above the folly of curiosity and experiment, else he would never have come out from his cover at the sound of human voices and crawled under a lady's leg. The rashness of the action became almost instantly apparent, and resulted awkwardly for everyone, but most especially for himself. Miss Fitzroy felt something moving against her stocking, and she gave a little scream and kicked. The kick squeezed the snake for a moment against the log, and he was so resentful that he immediately twined himself round the leg and bit it just above the ankle. Then Miss Fitzroy screamed and pulled up her petticoat, and the snake unfolded himself quickly and made for home. But Tom Biglow was too sharp for him; one little blow with a slender cane laid this one representative of a hated race low in the dust, and there he writhed out his life.

Miss Fitzroy screamed and screamed again in terror, and her horrified friend lent an effective chorus. Tom Biglow, wise youth! spake never a word, but wrenched the boot and stocking from the wounded limb and made haste to bind the lady's garter tightly above where three tiny punctures oozed each a single scarlet drop. Then, picking the frightened woman up, he carried her bodily in his strong young arms to the house, as fast as he might—considering that his burden was plump and by no means a trifling weight. The consternation throughout Tarragut was a thing to be remembered. Mrs. Wilks, when she could stop screaming, flew wildly at her husband.

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'First you knock her on the head,' she cried, 'then you destroy her with boa-constrictors and rattlesnakes.'

'My dear,' said Mr. Wilks, aghast, 'I assure you I had nothing whatever to do with the snake.'

'No. I wish you had. I only wish to goodness you had. Then you might show more feeling. I always said some one would be murdered in this hole of desolation. I always said it, and still you won't sell out and go to live in some civilized place. Oh, my poor murdered Madge!'

Of course, there was nothing to be said in answer to all this. And although Mrs. Wilks raved unreasonably, she acted sensibly, and was prompt to do all that could be done for her friend. Fortunately the doctor was already in the house. He had been nowhere else much for the last month, for that matter. He was a susceptible young Irishman, Miss Fitzroy a lovely fascinating young woman and his patient: verbum sat sapienti!

But Mrs. Wilks always said that it was the hand of Providence that guided him to Tarragut in that hour of sorest need. He made Miss Fitzroy swallow a tumbler full of raw brandy at once, then he bound her leg more tightly—it was already much swollen under and above the garter-ligature—and cut out a great piece all round, and including, the punctures. Then Madge fainted.

She was brought to her senses again with hartshorn and burnt feathers, more brandy was poured down her throat, her leg was plentifully rubbed with the same, and then Mr. Wilks took one side, Tom Biglow the other, and she was industriously walked up and down the veranda till both she and they were quite ready to drop. Her face swelled and flushed, her eyss grew heavy, with pupils dilated, her limbs dragged, her head drooped, coma was setting in rapidly.

'As if anything else could be expected!' she remarked afterwards to somebody. 'As if a woman tipsy with raw brandy could be anything else but comatose!'

'She must be kept up,' said the doctor, forcing more spirit down her throat 'If we give in to her tendency to sleep, she is a dead woman. Keep her up.'

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Mrs. Wilks shrieked again and ran about wildly, wringing her hands. Two of the station men were brought in, and the wilk on the veranda renewed. Madge was trailed up and down unceasingly for another two hours. By that time she was stupid almost to insensibility—a mere dead weight on the men's hands—and the doctor, with a gesture of despair, said they had better take her in now—there was no hope. Mrs. Wilks ceased crying; the horror of the thing numbed her into silence. Mr. Wilks raised both clenched hands to heaven, and shook them in mute reviling of Cod for his own helplessness. Tom Biglow, acting upon a sudden inspiration, rushed to the stable, jumped upon the swiftest horse he knew, and galloped bare-backed, like a maniac, to one of the out-stations.

'If old Budgeree Tommy is there, my Arab,' he said aloud to the flying steed, 'and we bring him back with us, you shall go to paddock for a year, my boy, and never know saddle. If he isn't there, I'll kill you.' Which was unfair and unjust to the last degree; but the horse sped on like the wind, and 'Budgeree Tommy' was there.

That sable individual sustained an awful fright, through being tossed up on horseback as if he were a sack of corn; nor was he soothed by the way Tom Biglow sprang up after him and roared to him to 'catch hold and stick on, else he'd get the roof of his dashed head lifted off!' And the mad, panting, foaming, sweating flight back to Tarragut homestead nearly shook the old man to death.

Meantime Madge Fitzroy had been carried to her bed, where she lay, flushed and swollen, and breathing stertorously.

'Oh, my darling, my darling. I shall die if you do,' sobbed Mrs. Wilks, flinging herself down upon the bed and kissing Madge's limp hand in an agony of grief.

Madge opened her eyes dully. 'Am I dying?' she said.

'Darling, darling, the doctor says so. And we don't know anything to save you.'

'Annie, lift me—up a little, I am choking. Is there—is there a telegraph office at Eominda?'

'Yes, dearest.'

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'Then send a telegram for me, will you, Annie?'

'Oh yes, Madge; what is it?'

'Say—"Madge is dying; come at once." I shall not live till he gets here, I know; but he will like to see me once more, even if I am dead.'

'But who is it, Madge? Where are we to send?'

'Leslie Hugill, Rose Street, St. Kilda, Melbourne. But perhaps he is not there now. Oh, Annie, it is very hard to die like this!'

'Oh, Madge, Madge, I cannot bear it. I shall die too; I know I shall.'

'If I might only see him again once—just once—more.'

The words came huskily; Madge's glazing eyes closed; her breathing grew heavier and louder, and was broken every few seconds by a suffocating gasp. Annie and the doctor turned to look at each other in mute despairing appeal; Mr. Wilks rushed out with the telegram. Just as he rode off with it, Tom Biglow, shirt-sleeved and hatless, dashed up from another direction with Budgeree Tommy clinging like grim death round his waist.

'Snake-bite, Tommy,' cried Biglow, dragging the old blackfellow unceremoniously to the ground. 'Woman bit with snake, close up dead. You make her better quick, else I knock you all to little pieces, now.'

With this he rushed the old man into the house, and to Madge's bedside.

Budgeree Tommy sniffed the air gratefully; a strong smell of brandy pervaded it, and brandy was dear to Tommy's soul. He was a comical old figure, standing there, naked save for the remnant of a pair of breeches that covered his loins. His blanket had dropped off by the way.

'You old ruffian, what are you sniffing at?' said Tom Biglow, making at him viciously.

'Everybody very much dam drunk here, I think it,' said Tommy, looking about him inquisitively.

'Look here, Tommy,' cried Biglow, changing his tone to one of entreaty. 'Lady close up dead; you make um better, page 353Tommy—good Tommy; you make um better, with black-fellows' doctor stuff.'

'Ugh!' grunted the old man, 'where him snake? Gimme snake.'

Like an arrow Tom sped to the hollow log, and returned with the still writhing reptile in his hand.

'For God's sake, Tom!' cried Mrs. Wilks, 'do you want to be bitten too?'

Budgeree Tommy took the quivering thing in his hand, and proceeded with a short pointed knife to divide it from head to tail down the middle, with the intention, we presume, of binding the entrails about the wound in Madge's leg, that being the aboriginal method of treating snake bite. But upon looking closely at the reptile before commencing operations, Tommy made a discovery, grunted twice, and then set up a comical, cackling laugh.

'What is it? What's up, Tommy?' cried Biglow anxiously.

'Baal that snake kill um any fellow. Budgeree snake that. You give um me; budgeree supper for blackfellow. Baal poison that snake.'

One of the non-venomous kind of Australian serpents! Could it be possible?

'But look, Tommy!' cried the doctor, almost as much con founded as hopeful; 'look at lady. Very much sick, that lady.'

'Very much drunk, that lady,' returned Tommy, with a fine snort of scorn. 'I see my lubra, Jinny, all same like that heaps o' time. Budgeree cold water—plenty cold water—all over her. Buckets cold water soon make better. Everybody very dam drunk in here, I think it,' said Tommy, sniffing round again complacently. 'Plenty drunk, I like it.' This with a suggestive g[gap — reason: invisiable]ance at Biglow.

'By Jove, you shall!' exclaimed that young man enthusiastically. 'Come along with me, old chap, and you shall have the biggest and the best drunk you ever had in your life, if you die over it.' And he dragged the old blackfellow away to the kitchen.

It was only when Mr. Wilks a long time after—at a christening, in fact, the first christening at Tarragut—went to his cellar for a page 354particularly valued brand of champagne that he had been hoarding there, it was only then that he learned that his precious liquor had gone to saturate Budgeree Tommy, and that after that worthy had drained the last bottle he had calmly asked Tom Biglow, 'How soon he bring um brandy? Dam soger water like um this swell urn blackfellow up like dead dingo, and never get em drunk for twenty year.'

The doctor—much humiliated, though without reason—administered to his patient a strong emetic. A detailed description of immediate results would be unpleasant without being interesting, so let it be. Suffice it to say that when Mr. Wilks returned from despatching that telegram, he found his wife in joyful hysterics, Budgeree Tommy performing a corroboree single-handed in the back-yard, before an admiring audience of Tom Biglow and the station hands, and Miss Fitzroy lying, very white and exhausted, upon her pillow, but strictly sober again, and certainly not suffering from snake poison.

On the evening of the third day afterwards a buggy was driven furiously up to Tarragut homestead, and as Miss Fitzroy was out on the veranda, Leslie Hugill was spared any delay in finding her. He held her so long in his arms, he smothered her so with his beard, that many minutes must have passed before she saw his mother, in deep mourning, standing at a little distance.

'Oh, Mrs. Hugill,' she cried, stretching out both hands imploringly, 'I thought I was dying, or I would not have sent for him. If you still say it is cruel of me——'

'Nothing can be so cruel as leaving him,' said Mrs. Hugill. 'Forgive whatever I said, Madge, and don't leave him. He is all that is left to me now, and I cannot bear to live if he is unhappy. Forgive me, Madge.'

'Forgive you!' cried Madge, in a passion of tears. 'It is I who need all the forgiveness. And I have been so unhappy, too.'

Mrs. Hugill kissed her, and the two were crying together when Tom Biglow came suddenly on the scene, and as suddenly retired from it.

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'Blamed if I can go anywhere about this establishment without dropping on weeping women lately. Upon my soul, I've a good mind to take to the bush,' said Tom.