"Maybe you go back to your American clothes, hey? Nobody we meet will guess who you are. You'll find them in my pack."
That was the best idea yet, for Biff was tired of his Sikh costume, particularly the bothersome turban. While Chandra and Kamuka were finishing their swim, Biff dressed in his own clothes. Then he strolled over to look at an ancient stone platform that someone had uncovered from the jungle roots.
The floor of burnt-clay bricks was set with colorful tiles that formed a broken pattern and from the six-sided shape of the platform, Biff decided it must have been a summerhouse frequented by the maharajah's courtiers. Some of the broken tiles had been stacked at the edge of the platform, and Biff picked them up to examine them.
They looked like some form of terra cotta, though they showed no traces of a glaze. Biff was stooping to replace them, when he heard a hiss behind him. Instantly, Biff wheeled about and instinctively voiced a sharp, warning cry, even before he saw the thing that he knew would be there.
Swelling up from the rubble was a scaly, bulbous neck, with odd, heart-shaped markings that gave it the look of a face with leering eyes and grinning lips. But the creature's own small head and beady eyes were above that puffed-out neck that came rising higher, as token of its deadly rage.
The hissing menace was a cobra, one of the most venomous snakes in India. Rearing to a height of nearly two feet, the cobra was within striking distance of Biff's leg, and poised, ready to deliver death from its dreaded fangs!
IX
The Man in the Jeep
Biff had given his quick cry as a warning to the other boys, though he was the one who needed help. Fortunately, it worked both ways, for Chandra, who had come from the pool and was putting on his clothes, turned quickly in Biff's direction when he heard that sharp call.
Chandra didn't have to see the cobra to know that it was there. Often before, he had seen and heard people react the way Biff had. In response, Chandra automatically voiced a warning of his own:
"Don't move, Biff! Stay right where you are!"