Nagoo would have sold his revenge for a tithe of the wealth thus dangled before him, but he saw no reason to suppose that there was another cobra anywhere in the garden, so he answered with the calm confidence of an expert, “That cannot be done.  The serpent will not heed any pipe now.  In its mind there is only revenge.”

“Then what will it do?” said the trembling Bunia.

“If its mate died by the hand of a man, it will follow that man until it has accomplished its purpose.”

“But how will it know,” asked Beharilal, “by whose hand its mate died?”

Nagoo replied with pious simplicity, “How can I tell by what means it knows?  God informs it.”

“But,” pleaded Beharilal, “is there no escape?—­if a man goes away by the railway or by water?”

Nagoo pondered for a moment and said, “If a man crossed the sea, the serpent would be baulked.  If he goes by railway it will not leave him.  Let him go to Madras, it will find him.”

With a faltering hand the Bunia put some rupees, uncounted, into the charmer’s skinny palm, saying, “Go, make incantations.  Do something.  There is great knowledge of mysteries with you”; and he hurried back into the house.

His arrangements were very soon made.  His account books, with a bundle of bonds and hoondies and cash and his son, were put into a small cart drawn by a pair of fast trotting bullocks, into which he himself climbed, after looking under the cushion to see that there was no evil beast lurking there, and got away in haste while the sun was yet hot.  The rest of the family followed with the household property, and in a few days the house was empty and only the Malee remained in charge.  Many years have passed and the house is empty still, and the Malee, grown grey and frail, is still in charge.  He gets no wages, but he sells the jasmine flowers and the mangoes and guavas, and he grows chillies and brinjals, and so fills the stomachs of himself and his little grandson and is contented.  If you ask him where the Seth has gone, he replies, “Who knows?” His debt has gone with his creditor, “gone glimmering through the dream of things that were,” and he has no desire to recall them.

A civil or military officer from the station, taking a solitary walk, sometimes finds himself at the Cobra Bungalow, and turns in to wander among its old trees and unswept paths, obstructed by overgrown and untended shrubs, and wonders how it got its name.  Then he pauses at the whitewashed shrine and notes that the god-stone has been freshly painted red and that chaplets of faded flowers lie before it.  But the old Malee approaches with a meek salaam and a posy of jasmine and marigolds and warns him that there is a cobra in the shrine.

XIII

THE PANTHER I DID NOT SHOOT