but otherwise you shall not be disturbed."

She broke into delighted laughter. Of all women the most steadfast of
soul, her outward moods were as variable as a child's. "Agreed!" she
cried. "You and the minister and Diccon Demon shall lay your muskets
across your knees, and Angela shall witch you into stone with her old,
mad, heathen charms. And then--and then--I will gather more gold than
had King Midas; I will dance with the hamadryads; I will find out Oberon
and make Titania jealous!"

"I do not doubt that you could do so," I said, as she sprang to her
feet, childishly eager and radiantly beautiful.

I rose to go in with her, for it was supper time, but in a moment
changed my mind, and resumed my seat on the bank of turf. "Do you go
in," I said. "There's a snake near by, in those bushes below the bank.
I'll kill the creature, and then I'll come to supper."

When she was gone, I walked to where, ten feet away, the bank dipped
to a clump of reeds and willows planted in the mud on the brink of the
river. Dropping on my knees I leaned over, and, grasping a man by the
collar, lifted him from the slime where he belonged to the bank beside
me.

It was my Lord Carnal's Italian doctor that I had so fished up. I had
seen him before, and had found in his very small, mean figure clad all
in black, and his narrow face with malignant eyes, and thin white lips
drawn tightly over gleaming teeth, something infinitely repulsive,
sickening to the sight as are certain reptiles to the touch.

"There are no simples or herbs of grace to be found amongst reeds and
half-drowned willows," I said. "What did so learned a doctor look for in
so unlikely a place?"

He shrugged his shoulders and made play with his clawlike hands, as if
he understood me not. It was a lie, for I knew that he and the English
tongue were sufficiently acquainted. I told him as much, and he shot
at me a most venomous glance, but continued to shrug, gesticulate, and
jabber in Italian. At last I saw nothing better to do than to take him,
still by the collar, to the edge of the garden next the churchyard, and
with the toe of my boot to send him tumbling among the graves. I watched
him pick himself up, set his attire to rights, and go away in the
gathering dusk, winding in and out among the graves; and then I went in
to supper, and told Mistress Percy that the snake was dead.

CHAPTER XII IN WHICH I RECEIVE A WARNING AND REPOSE A TRUST

SHORTLY before daybre