"Can't he hear you?" I asked.
"No—he couldn't hear a clap of thunder. That is, unless he's faking."
I looked again at the impassive figure.
"He's not faking," I said.
"I don't know," and Godfrey shook his head sceptically. "It looks like the real thing—but these fellows are mighty clever. Do you see the other victim? There's no fake about it!"
"I see no one else," I said, after a vain scrutiny.
"Look carefully on the other side of the sphere. Don't you see something there?"
My eyes were smarting under the strain, and for a moment longer I saw nothing; then a strange, grey shape detached itself from the blackness. It was an ugly and repulsive shape, slender below, but swelling hideously at the top, and as I stared at it, it seemed to me that it returned my stare with malignant eyes screened by a pair of white-rimmed glasses. Then, with a sensation of dizziness, I saw that the shape was swaying gently back and forth, in a sort of rhythm. And then, quite suddenly, I saw what it was, and a chill of horror quivered up my back.
It was a cobra.
To and fro it swung, to and fro, its staring eyes fixed upon the sphere, its spectacled hood hideously distended.