little more social," said the Hindu
gentleman as they entered the compartment; and the servants brought stools
from the toilet-room, so that all were seated, making quite a family group.

"Are there any snakes where we are going, Sir Modava?" asked Felix, before
any one else had a chance to speak. "I am spoiling for a fight with a
cobra;" and he came back to plain English, which he could use as well as
any one.

"Plenty of them, Mr. McGavonty," replied the East Indian. "You will not get
badly spoiled before you fall in with all you will wish to see."

"Then I will bag some of them," added Felix.

"No, you won't, Flix; they will be more likely to bag you," rallied Scott.

"But I am in earnest," persisted the Milesian. "I have seen plenty of them
in Bombay; and upon my word and honor, I don't feel at all afraid of them.
One of them might hit me when I was not looking, for they don't play fair;
but I shall be on the watch for them, and I'll take my chance."

"But, Sir Modava, do you really dare to go out where there are cobras?"
asked Mrs. Belgrave, looking at her son.

"Certainly we do; we don't think anything at all about them."

"But you are in danger all the time."

"Of course it is possible that one may be bitten when a snake comes upon
him unawares. The deaths from snakes and wild animals in all India averages
annually twenty-two thousand. About a thousand are killed by tigers. Of a
hundred and fifty kinds of snakes, only about twenty are poisonous. The
deaths from snakes is one in 13,070; and the chance of being bitten is very
small."

"I am afraid your figures lie, Sir Modava," said Captain Ringgold, with a
pleasant laugh. "Millions of the people live in cities and large towns
where there isn't a snake of any kind."

"Quite true, and, to some extent, the figures do lie; but there are plenty
of cobras and other snakes in parts of Bombay, and the figures are not so
false as you think, Captain," replied Sir Modava. "But I forget that I was
sent here for a purpose by Lord Tremlyn. I am to tell you something about
the Mahrattas, which is the name of the people who inhabited the region
north of us. They have a long history which I have not time to review, but
they have been prominent in the earlier affairs of India. They have always
been a warlike people, and wrested the country from the Mogul emperor,
sometimes called the Grand Mogul, and made themselves a powerful people.

"The present maharajah rules over