As he was talking, I was conscious of a peculiar, slightly musky odour pervading the tent, and I was wondering what it could be, when the man returned with two or three burning splints of some aromatic wood, which gave forth a great deal of smoke, and he walked about the tent, waving the pieces and holding them low down near the carpet where the serpent had lain, and also along a track leading past the lamp to the side of the tent where I had seen the shadowy form of the second serpent.
He busied himself in this way till the matches were pretty well burned down, and then placed the ends in a little brass vessel, which he stood on the carpet not far from my couch.
Then approaching me, he said humbly, and with a low reverence—
“Will my lord grant his servant’s prayer?”
“What do you mean?” I said, rather testily, for his excessive humility worried me. I hated to be worshipped like that. “Not tell the rajah about the snakes?”
“If my master the rajah knows, thy servant may be slain.”
“What! for that?” I said.
“Yes, my lord. His highness bade me take as great care of your life as I would of my own. Thy servant has tried to do his duty, and serve my lord. He has done everything the great physician, the rajah’s own doctor, bade him do, and cared for my lord as if he had been thy servant’s own son. It would be hard to die because a serpent of the forest came in after seeing the light.”
“Hard? Yes,” I said quietly. “There, mind no more of the brutes get in. I shall not say a word to the rajah or any one else.”
“Ah,” he cried joyfully. And before I could remove it, he had gone down on his knees and kissed my hand. “Thy servant goes back with joy in his heart. He did not love to serve him, for the white sahibs are cruel to their servants, and are hated; but they are not all so, and thy servant seeth now why his master the rajah loveth my lord, and careth for him as one who is very dear.”