“Stop!” I shouted at her.
There was enough alarm in my voice to check her.
I had spotted the triffid now. It was lurking among the bushes, well within striking range of the sprawled figure.
“Back! Quick!” I said.
Still looking at the man on the ground, she hesitated.
“But I must——” she began, turning toward me. Then she stopped. Her eyes widened, and she screamed.
I whipped round to find a triffid towering only a few feet behind me.
In one automatic movement I had my hands over my eyes. I heard the sting whistle as it slashed out at me—but there was no knockout, no agonizing burning, even. One’s mind can move like lightning at such a moment; nevertheless, it was more instinct than reason which sent me leaping at it before it had time to strike again. I collided with it, overturning it, and even as I went down with it my hands were on the upper part of the stem, trying to pull off the cup and the sting. Triffid stems do not snap—but they can be mangled. This one was mangled thoroughly before I stood up.
Josella was standing in the same spot, transfixed.
“Come here,” I told her. “There’s another in the bushes behind you.”
She glanced fearfully over her shoulder and came.
“But it hit you!” she said incredulously. “Why aren’t you——”
“I don’t know. I ought to be,” I said.
I looked down at the fallen triffid. Suddenly remembering the knives that we’d acquired with quite other enemies in mind, I used mine to cut off the sting at its base. I examined it.
“That explains it,” I said, pointing to the poison sacs. “See, they’re collapsed, exhausted. If they’d been full, or even part full…” I turned a thumb down.
I had that, and my acquired resistance to the poison, to thank. Nevertheless, there were pale red marks across the backs of my hands and my neck that were itching like the devil. I rubbed them while I stood looking at the sting.
“It’s queer,” I murmured, more to myself than to her, but she heard me.
“What’s queer?”
“I’ve never seen one with the poison sacs quite empty like this before. It must have been doing a hell of a lot of stinging.”
But I doubt if she heard me. Her attention had reverted to the man who was lying in the drive, and she was eying the triffid standing by.
“How can we get him away?” she asked.
“I’m afraid we can’t—not till that thing’s been dealt with,” I told her. “Besides—well, I don’t think we can help him now.”
“You mean he’s dead?”
I nodded. “Yes. There’s not a doubt of it—I’ve seen others who have been stung. Who was he?” I added.
“Old Pearson. He did gardening for us, and chauffeuring for my father. Such a dear old man—I’ve know him all my life.”
“I’m sorry——” I began, wishing I could think of something more adequate, but she cut me short.
“Look! Oh, look!” She pointed to a path which ran round the side of the house. A black-stockinged leg with a woman’s shoe on it protruded beyond the corner.
We prospected carefully and then moved safely to a spot which gave a better view. A girl in a black dress lay half on the path and half in a flower bed. Her pretty, fresh face was scarred with a bright red line. Josella choked. Tears came into her eyes.
“Oh! Oh, it’s Annie! Poor little Annie,” she said.