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 of triumph, of mastery, informed it—­“and now I am going to cane you three boys; I am going to try to break your stubborn wills; but you are big and strong, and you must let me do it.  If you don’t let me do it, you will break my heart, for if I am too weak to command here, I must resign.  Oh, I wish that I were strong!”

The mutineers stared at each other, at the small white face confronting them, at the boys and girls about them.  It was a great moment in their lives, an imperishable experience.  The biggest spoke first, sheepishly, roughly, almost defiantly—­

“Come on up, boys; we’ll hev to take a lickin’ this time.”

Alethea-Belle went back to the rostrum, trembling.  She had never caned a boy before, and she loathed violence.  And yet she gave those three lads a sound thrashing.  When the last stroke was given, she tottered and fell back upon her chair—­senseless.