Snake and Sword

Snake and Sword,
by Percival
Christopher Wren

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Title: Snake and Sword A Novel
Author: Percival Christopher Wren
Release Date: January 10, 2004 [EBook #10667]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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SNAKE AND SWORD

A NOVEL
BY
PERCIVAL CHRISTOPHER WREN

DEDICATED TO MY WIFE ALICE LUCILLE WREN

CONTENTS

PART I.
THE WELDING OF A SOUL
I. The Snake and the Soul

PART II.
THE SEARING OF A SOUL
II. The Sword and the Snake
III. The Snake Appears
IV. The Sword and the Soul
V. Lucille
VI. The Snake's "Myrmidon"
VII. Love--and the Snake

VIII. Troopers of the Queen
IX. A Snake avenges a Haddock and Lucille behaves in an
un-Smelliean Manner
X. Much Ado about Almost Nothing--A Mere Trooper
XI. More Myrmidons

PART III.
THE SAVING OF A SOUL
XII. Vultures and Luck--Good and Bad
XIII. Found
XIV. The Snake and the Sword
Seven Years After


PART I.
THE WELDING OF A SOUL.
CHAPTER I.
THE SNAKE AND THE SOUL.
When Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne, V.C., D.S.O., of the
Queen's Own (118th) Bombay Lancers, pinned his Victoria Cross to
the bosom of his dying wife's night-dress, in token of his recognition

that she was the braver of the twain, he was not himself.
He was beside himself with grief.
Afterwards he adjured the sole witness of this impulsive and emotional
act, Major John Decies, never to mention his "damned theatrical folly"
to any living soul, and to excuse him on the score of an ancient
sword-cut on the head and two bad sun-strokes.
For the one thing in heaven above, on the earth beneath, or in the
waters under the earth, that Colonel de Warrenne feared, was breach of
good form and stereotyped convention.
And the one thing he loved was the dying woman.
This last statement applies also to Major John Decies, of the Indian
Medical Service, Civil Surgeon of Bimariabad, and may even be
expanded, for the one thing he ever had loved was the dying woman....
Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne did the deed that won him his
Victoria Cross, in the open, in the hot sunlight and in hot blood, sword
in hand and with hot blood on the sword-hand--fighting for his life.
His wife did the deed that moved him to transfer the Cross to her, in
darkness, in cold blood, in loneliness, sickness and silence--fighting for
the life of her unborn child against an unseen foe.
Colonel de Warrenne's type of brave deed has been performed
thousands of times and wherever brave men have fought.
His wife's deed of endurance, presence of mind, self-control and cool
courage is rarer, if not unique.
To appreciate this fully, it must be known that she had a horror of
snakes, so terrible as to amount to an obsession, a mental deformity,
due, doubtless, to the fact that her father (Colonel Mortimer Seymour
Stukeley) died of snake-bite before her mother's eyes, a few hours
before she herself was born.

Bearing this in mind, judge of the conduct that led Colonel de
Warrenne, distraught, to award her his Cross "For Valour".
One oppressive June evening, Lenore de Warrenne returned from
church (where she had, as usual, prayed fervently that her
soon-expected first-born might be a daughter), and entered her
dressing-room. Here her Ayah divested her of hat, dress, and boots, and
helped her into the more easeful tea-gown and satin slippers.
"Bootlair wanting ishweets for dinner-table from go-down,[1] please,
Mem-Sahib," observed Ayah, the change of garb accomplished.
"The butler wants sweets, does he? Give me my keys, then," replied
Mrs. de Warrenne, and, rising with a sigh, she left the dressing-room
and proceeded, via the dining-room (where she procured some small
silver bowls, sweet-dishes, and trays), to the go-down or store-room,
situate at the back of the bungalow and adjoining the
"dispense-khana"--the room in which assemble the materials and
ministrants of meals from the extra-mural "bowachi-khana" or kitchen.
Unlocking the door of the go-down, Mrs. de Warrenne entered the
small shelf-encircled room, and, stepping on to a low stool proceeded
to fill the sweet-trays from divers jars, tins and boxes, with
guava-cheese, crystallized ginger, kulwa, preserved mango and certain
of the more sophisticated sweetmeats of the West.
It was after sunset and the hamal had not yet lit the lamps, so that this
pantry, a dark