gasps, for help.  A rush of excited and screaming women met him in the inner court, and he dropped his precious burden, with pious ejaculations, into the arms of its mother, and stood panting and speechless.  Then calling aloud to know if all danger was past, he ventured cautiously out again and saw that the Purdaisee and the Malee had ejected the wriggling cobra and were pounding its head into a jelly with a big stone.

For some seconds he looked on in a strange stupor, and then he realised what he had done.  He, Beharilal, the Bunia, who had always removed the insects so tenderly from his own person that they were not hurt, who had never committed the sin of killing a mosquito or a fly; he, with his own hands, had taken the life of the guardian cobra of the shrine!  “Urray-ray!  Bap-ray!” he cried, “for what demerit of mine has this ill-luck befallen me in my old age?  What will happen now?”

“Nay, Sethjkee,” said the Malee, “be not afraid.  It was in your destiny that this offspring of Satan should come to its end by your hand.  We have pounded its head properly, so it will not return to you,”

“But what of its mate?” said Beharilal.  “I have heard that, if any man kills a cobra, its mate will follow him by day and by night until it has had its revenge.  Is that not so?”

The Malee answered, “Chh, Chh!  There is no mate of this cobra,” but his tone was not confident.

“Go,” cried Beharilal—­“go quickly and call Nagoo, the snake-charmer.  He has knowledge.”

“I will go,” said the Malee, and set off at a run; but when he got out of the gate he lapsed into a leisurely walk, for why should a man lose his breath without cause?  In time he found his way to the little settlement of huts constructed of poles and mats, where Nagoo sat on the ground smoking his “chillum,” and told his errand.

“Why should I come?” was Nagoo’s reply; “I went to take away that cobra and the Bunia drove me from the garden with abuse.  Why does he send for me now?”

“He is a Bunia,” said the Malee, as if that summed up the whole matter; but he added, after a pause, “If he sees a burning ground, he shakes like a peepul leaf.  The cobra has died by his hand and his liver has become like water.  Whatever you ask he will give.  You should come,”

Nagoo replied aloud, “I will come,” and to himself, “I will give him physic.”  Then he took up his baskets and his pipe and followed the Malee.

Beharilal proceeded to business with a directness foreign to his habit, looking over his shoulder at intervals lest a snake might be silently approaching.  “Good Nagoo,” he said, “a great misfortune has happened.  The cobra of the shrine has been killed.  Has it a mate?”

“How can a cobra not have a mate?” answered Nagoo curtly.

Then Beharilal employed the most insinuating of the many tones of his voice.  “Listen, Nagoo.  You are a man of skill.  Capture that cobra and I will pay you well.  I will give you five rupees.”  Then, observing no response in the wrinkled visage of the charmer, “I will give you ten rupees.”