s quite different from
the show you witnessed this forenoon."

As he spoke the door opened, and a couple of old and rather snaky-looking
Hindus, folded up in a profusion of cloths, rather than garments, entered
the apartment. Sir Modava conducted them to a proper distance from the
audience, who could not help distrusting the good intentions of the
vicious-looking reptiles. Each of them carried such a basket as the party
had seen in the square. The men seemed to be at least first cousins to the
serpents the baskets contained, for their expression was subtle enough to
stamp them as belonging to the same family.

The performers squatted on the floor, and each placed a basket before him,
removing the cover; but the serpents did not come out. The charmers then
produced a couple of instruments which Sir Modava called lutes, looking
more like a dried-up summer crookneck squash, with a mouthpiece, and a tube
with keys below the bulb. Adjusting it to their lips, they began to play;
and the music was not bad, and it appeared to be capable of charming the
cobras, for they raised their heads out of the baskets.

The melody produced a strange effect upon the reptiles, for they began to
wriggle and twist as they uncoiled themselves. They hissed and outspread
their hoods, and instead of being charmed by the music, it seemed as though
their wrath had been excited. They made an occasional dart at the human
performers, who dodged them as though they had been in their native
jungles, with their business fangs in order for deadly work. But the Hindu
gentleman explained that they could bite, though they could not kill, after
their poison fangs had been removed.

Then one of the performers stood up, and seizing his snake by the neck, he
swung him three times around his head, and dropped him on the floor. There
he lay extended at his full length, as stiff as though he had taken a dose
of his own poison.

"I have killed my serpent!" exclaimed the Hindu with a groan. "But I can
make him into a useful cane."

Sir Modava interpreted his remarks, and the fellow picked up his snake, and
walked before the audience, using it as a staff, and pretending to support
himself upon it. Then he held out the reptile to the visitors, and offered
to sell his cane; but they recoiled, and the ladies were on the point of
rushing from the room when Sir Modava ordered him off. He retreated a
proper distance, and then thrust the head of the creature beneath his