The yogi had not moved.
Godfrey contemplated him for a moment, with his torch full on the bearded face. Then he crossed the threshold, his torch sweeping the floor in front of him.
"Let's see what the Thug is up to," he said, crossed the room, drew back the drapery, and opened the door into the little closet where we had seen Mahbub once before.
There was a burst of acrid smoke into the room, and Godfrey stepped back with a stifled exclamation.
"Come here, you fellows!" he cried, and Simmonds and I sprang to his side.
For a moment I could see nothing; the rolling clouds of smoke blinded and choked me; I could feel the tears running down my cheeks and my throat burned as though it had been scalded.
Then the smoke lifted a little, and I caught a glimpse of what lay within the room.
In the middle of the floor stood an open brazier, with a thin yellow flame hovering above it, now bright, now dim, as the smoke whirled about it. Before the brazier, sat Mahbub, his legs crossed with feet uppermost, his hands pressed palm to palm before his face.
"But he'll suffocate!" I gasped, and, indeed, I did not see how any human being could breathe in such an atmosphere.
And then, as the smoke whirled aside again, I saw the snake. Its head was waving slowly to and fro, its horrible hood distended, its yellow, lidless eyes fixed upon us.