Village books

Arthur watched him for signs of pain, but he did not
wince. The writhing snake dangled from his hand. He repeated a sentence
in Arabic, and, with the peculiar suddenness of a drop of water falling
from a roof, the snake fell to the ground. The blood flowed freely. Haddo
spat upon the bleeding place three times, muttering words they could not
hear, and three times he rubbed the wound with his fingers. The bleeding
stopped. He stretched out his hand for Arthur to look at.
'That surely is what a surgeon would call healing by first intention,' he
said.
Burdon was astonished, but he was irritated, too, and would not allow
that there was anything strange in the cessation of the flowing blood.
'You haven't yet shown that the snake was poisonous.'
'I have not finished yet,' smiled Haddo.
He spoke again to the Egyptian, who gave an order to his wife. Without a
word she rose to her feet and from a box took a white rabbit. She lifted
it up by the ears, and it struggled with its four quaint legs. Haddo put
it in front of the horned viper.


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