As he spoke something curved over my instep. Such things take the nerve out of a European; but I stumbled on, peering into the darkness, trying to think of Bannerman's danger, and not of that next step and what it might bring. But it came at last--just as we dipped into a cooler, moister glen, where I could hear the flying foxes hovering from tree to tree--a slither of the foot, and then a spiral coil up my leg gripping the muscles tight. My shriek echoed from the heat-hardened, resounding rocks until the whole hillside seemed peopled by my fear; and even when Sambo, stooping down, uncoiled the snake and threw it into the darkness, I could scarcely realise that I was none the worse for having put my heel on a viper's head. My nerve seemed gone, I could not move except at a snail's pace.
"Time speeds," came Sambo's voice again. "The moon rises but the clouds gather. If the Huzoor would only not mind----"
"I'd mind nothing if I could see--see as you seem to do," I muttered, ashamed yet aggrieved.
"That is it," he replied, "the Huzoor cannot see, and the holy snakes do not know him as they know me. If the sahib will let me put the caste mark on his forehead as it is on mine he need not fear. It can do no harm, Huzoor."
True; besides the very idea by suggesting confidence might restore it.
"Lest the dust should fall into the Huzoor's eyes," said the voice softly, and I felt long thin fingers on my eyelids; then something on my forehead, cold and hard, cold and hard like a ring---- The effect of such pressure when the eyes are closed is always confusing, and I felt as if I was dozing off when the same soft voice roused me.
"The Huzoor can see now."
I opened my eyes with a start as if from sleep. Had the moon risen or whence came that pale light by which I saw--what did I not see? Everything, surely, that had been created since the world began; the tiny watersprites in the half-stagnant pools, the flying motes in the dim air. Or did I dream it? Did I only feel and know that they were there, part of those endless, endless æons of life and death in which I was a unit.
"Sambo," I gasped feebly, but there was no answer. Where was I? By degrees memory returned. This must be the Gayâtri glen, for there, at the further end, stood the great image of the dread Maha-deo where the pilgrims worshipped; and surely the odd light came from that gleaming cat'seye on its forehead? Surely, too, the snakes curled and swayed, the outstretched hands opened and shut? My own went up to my forehead in my bewilderment, when, suddenly, the light seemed to fade, till I could just see Nilkunta's blue throat as he stood beside me.
"The Huzoor has scratched his forehead; the blood trickles from it. See, I have brought a tulsi leaf. There! that is better." I felt the coolness between my eyes, and something of my bewilderment seemed to pass away.