"What does he say?" asked Harry; "he can kill it more easily, without spoiling the skin?"
"Yes. Look. What a while these things take to die!"
"My father says that at home in England the country people say you can't kill a snake directly. It always lives till the sun sets."
"You haven't got snakes like that in England?"
"Oh no; the biggest are only a little more than a yard long."
"But how can they live like that? What has the sun to do with it?"
"Nothing. Father says it's only an old-fashioned superstition."
"Look! Sree's going to kill the snake now. He's a bad Buddhist."
"Never mind; he's a capital hunter. See what splendid things we've found when we've been with him," said Harry enthusiastically. "He seems to know the habits of everything in the jungle."
Harry ceased speaking, for Sree drew a knife from its sheath in the band of his sarong, or padung, whetted it on one of the stones of the rockery, and went to the head of the serpent, which was moving gently.