e heavily barred. The
children wondered what was about to happen. The three rebels sang with
a louder, more defiant note as Alethea-Belle walked past them and on
to the rostrum. Upon her desk stood a covered basket. Taking this in
her hand, she came back to the middle of the room. The boys eyed her
movements curiously. She carried, besides the basket, a cane. Then she
bent down and placed the basket between herself and the boys. They
still sang "Pull for the Shore," but faintly, feebly. They stared hard
at the basket and the cane. Alethea-Belle stood back, with a curious
expression upon her white face; very swiftly she flicked open the lid
of the basket. Silence fell on the scholars.

Out of the basket, quite slowly and stealthily, came the head of a
snake, a snake well known to the smallest child--known and dreaded.
The flat head, the lidless, baleful eyes, the grey-green, diamond-
barred skin of the neck were unmistakable.

"It's a rattler!" shrieked one of the rebels.

They sprang back; the other children rose, panic-stricken. The
schoolmarm spoke very quietly--

"Don't move! The snake will not hurt any of you."

As she spoke she flicked again the lid of the basket. It fell on the
head of the serpent. Alethea-Belle touched the horror, which withdrew.
Then she picked up the basket, secured the lid, and spoke to the
huddled-up, terrified crowd--

"You tried to scare me, didn't you, and I have scared you." She
laughed pleasantly, but with a faint inflection of derision, as if she
knew, as she did, that the uncivilised children of the foothills, like
their fathers, fear nothing on earth so much as rattlers and--
ridicule. After a moment she continued: "I brought this here to-day as
an object-lesson. You loathe and fear the serpent in this basket, as I
loathe and fear the serpent which is in you." She caught the eyes of
the mutineers and held them. "And," her eyes shone, "I believe that I
have been sent to kill the evil in you, as I am going to kill this
venomous beast. Stand back!"

They shrank back against the walls, open-eyed, open-mouthed,
trembling. Alethea-Belle unfastened for the second time the lid of the
basket; once more the flat head protruded, hissing. Alethea-Belle
struck sharply.

"It is harmless now," she said quietly; "its back is broken."

But the snake still writhed. Alethea-Belle shuddered; then she set her
heel firmly upon the head.

"And now"--her voice was weak and quavering, but a note