“Do you mean that some of them still have their fangs and poison bags?”

“Sure!  D’ye see that little copper-colored cuss down there in the corner, not more’n a foot long?  If he got a crack at you, you’d not live ten seconds.”

“Well, I will take deuced good care that he gets no nip at me,” declared Chick, with a grin.  “Why do they have such dangerous things around?”

“H’m!  What would be the excitement, or the credit of snake charming, if the wriggling beasts were made harmless by pulling out their fangs?” demanded the stage hand.  “It would be like a dog fight, with the dogs muzzled.  These belong to that heathen Hindoo, the snake charmer.  He shows next.”

“Pandu Singe?” inquired Chick, glancing at the name on the program.

“Sure.  He handles ’em like so many babies.  There he is now, just coming from his dressing room.  He looks a bit like a snake himself.”

Chick turned and gazed curiously at the approaching foreigner.

Pandu Singe was a tall, swarthy man, with straight, black hair, an Indian cast of features, and a pair of intensely black and piercing eyes.  Their glitter was indeed like that in the eyes of a snake, yet the Hindoo, approaching without a word to anybody, or a glance to either side, was not without a certain sort of savage dignity.

He wore a red turban around his head, while a loose, black robe, belted around his waist, reached nearly to his ankles.  With a gesture he signed the several men away from his hideous den of reptiles, and Chick retired up the stage.

The detective had barely made his change, when he heard the low voice of Busby near by, the friend who had smuggled him upon the stage that evening.

“Hist!  There she is, Chick!”

“Cervera?”

“Yes.  Down yonder, just to the right of the electric switchboard.  Slip in back of this wood wing, and you can have a good look at her.”

“All right, Busby, old man,” whispered Chick.  “Don’t you pay too much attention to me, or it may be noticed.  I’ll see all there is to be seen, old boy.”

Busby winked understandingly, and Chick stepped back of the scenery mentioned, through a portion of which he could easily watch Cervera unobserved.

That she was a daughter of sunny Spain no man would have doubted.  Her wavy hair was as dark as night, and her eyes were as radiant as the night stars.  Her rich, olive complexion was much rouged, adding to the brilliancy of her splendid beauty.

She appeared to be about twenty-five, and was clad in her stage costume, which combined all the bright hues of the rainbow, and was enlivened by a myriad of dazzling jewels and diamonds.

The costume served to display to advantage her matchless figure, however, and Chick was fain to admit that he had never seen a much more striking beauty.

“She’s a bird, all right, and no mistake,” he said to himself, while intently regarding her handsome face and jewel-bedecked figure.  “Yet she has a bad eye, despite her beauty, and a cruel mouth.  She certainly would put up a wicked fight, if once aroused.  Yes, a deucedly bad eye!  What in thunder is she staring at, to look like that!”