ering so fierce a cut at the head that the neck was
broken, and it fell back upon the writhing knot perfectly inert, a few
more blows making the body as helpless as the head and neck.

This done, the man seized the creature by the tail, and drew it out to
its full length, which seemed to me to be eight or nine feet; but the
creature was very thick.

The man had turned to me with a scared face, and spoke almost for the
first time since he had been my attendant, saying in Hindustani--

"I pray that my lord will not tell my master the maharajah!"

"Not tell him you killed the snake?"

"No, my lord. He would say thy servant did right to slay the serpent;
but he would punish him for not keeping guard, and seeing that no
serpent came."

"Would it have bitten and poisoned me?" I asked.

"No, my lord. This kind does not bite and poison, only twists round and
crushes. It is very strong."

"How did it come in?" I said.

He went down on his hands and knees and examined the edge of the tent,
looking for a hole where the creature could have crept under; but every
part was secure, and the man rose, and his face wore a puzzled look.

"Thy servants have done their work well," he said. "There is no hole
where the serpent could have crept under. I do not know."

He was peering about in silence, while I lay gradually recovering my
equanimity, and congratulating myself on the fact that my nocturnal
visitor had been a serpent of the boa kind, and not a deadly cobra, when
the man suddenly held up his finger, and pointed to a spot beyond the
lamp, where the roof and canvas wall of the tent joined.

As I tried to penetrate the dim, warm twilight of the room, I could hear
a faint rustling sound, and I saw my attendant stoop cautiously and go,
without making a sound, toward the spot where his stick lay on the
carpet, not far from the still heaving body of the reptile he had slain.

As I gazed hard at the place whence the rustling came, I suddenly caught
sight of something behind the lamp, something shadowy or misty, swaying
gently to any fro, and I at once grasped the fact that it was another
serpent entering the tent by the way in which the first must have found
its way.

I had hardly arrived at this point when my attention was taken up by the
action of my attendant, who was stealing round like a black shadow close
to the side of the tent, and the next minute he raised his stick, and
made a sharp blow at the intruder.