led for a hand-mirror, and with little trouble threw
the bright reflection of the sun into the hole, a little more than a
foot deep, fully lighting up the interior.

The cobra was there! It lay motionless in a glistening coil, as if
resting from its fruitless pursuit of the frog and brooding over its
disappointment. It was an alarming sight, but the good man kept cool,
and meant business from the start.

Taking a piece of broken wagon tire, he thrust it slantingly into the
hole, to hold the serpent a prisoner, and shoving the muzzle of his
revolver forward, he let fly.

Not the slightest motion followed. He had missed. He now gently
turned the tire edgewise and fired again. A furious writhing followed,
proving that the snake had been hit hard. The tire was instantly
turned over flat to prevent its coming out. It struck fiercely at the
iron, which in a minute was shifted on its edge again, and the
missionary emptied the remaining chambers of his revolver down the
hole. Then he turned up the tire once more, and allowed the hideous
head to dart forth.

The minister had brought with him a pair of large hedge shears, with
which he seized the protruding neck, drew out the snake and gave it a
flirt toward the compound. He was so absorbed with his task that he
had not noticed the crowd of men, women and children that had gathered
to watch the results of his hunt. When they saw a huge cobra flying
through the air toward them, there was a scampering and screaming,
which might have been less had they known that the grip of the shears
had dislocated the serpent's neck.

The good man did not forget that whenever you find one deadly serpent,
another is quite certain to be close at hand. He had passed the wagon
tire to the teacher, when he began pulling out the wounded cobra, and
asked him to insert it again without an instant's delay. This was
done, and returning with the hand-glass, the missionary once more
conveyed the rays into the underground chamber.

Sure enough a second cobra was there, wriggling and squirming in a way
to show that he had received some of the bullets intended for his
companion. The revolver was reloaded and a fusillade opened, standing
off a few paces, the marksman waited for the head to come forth that he
might seize and draw it out as he had done with the other.

The wounded reptile continued its furious squirming and striking, but
its head did not appear, until shot after shot had been