"Well, you understand English, anyhow, which is a good thing because I want a word with you."
He lit his cigarette deliberately, and, folding his arms, surveyed the wide stretch of plain before him. Save for the high grass, it was barren to the river edge, but beyond that broad, swift-flowing barrier it became rich with pasture and golden harvest. Barclay's eyes narrowed at the still ardent sunlight, but beneath the heavy, drooping lids there was a gleam of some smouldering passion, triumph—resentment.
"Not much of that crop that isn't mine," he said loudly. "They needn't call me Sahib—not yet—if they don't want to—but I'm lord here, for all that. I've got the whip hand, and that's what matters."
The Fakir paid no heed to an outburst which was indeed not intended for him. He bent forward from the hips and whistled softly, on one monotonous note, the while swaying from left to right with rhythmic precision. In a minute the tangled growth which, like the first low waters of an incoming tide, spread out from the jungle and lapped the temple walls, rustled, parted, and a black glistening body writhed out into the sunshine. There it paused, listening, its arrow-shaped head lifted out of the tight coils, and moving to the measure of its enchanter. Barclay looked down and started and then laughed.
"Practising for the great show, eh? I suppose it'll keep the old story going—the jungle of serpents. Lord, how you must hate us, with our education and uplifting of the masses. One of these days I'll clear the jungle and build a factory, and you can go out of business. That old trick——!"
Still laughing, he crouched down on his heels and hissed gently, his black eyes intent on the reptile's poised and swaying body. Vahana continued to whistle. They had entered into a competition which to Barclay was a mere jest. But the serpent had grown still, attentive, its ugly head drawn back in an attitude of cold deliberation. From time to time its lithe, evilly forked tongue shot out and then an expression seemed to dawn on the flat face—a kind of satanic pleasure. Then, suddenly, as though arrived at a decision, it uncoiled and came gliding towards Barclay. Barclay no longer called to it. His eyes were clouded and stupid-looking. He glanced up at Vahana and found that he was being watched. Between the old man and the uncannily moving adder there had developed an affinity. The Fakir's face seemed to have narrowed and sharpened. From the wide cheek-bones down to the chin there were two straight converging lines between which ran the cruel curve of the mouth. The eyes were hard and dead as a basilisk's. But, like the reptile's, they expressed something—a sinister amusement, a soulless, ageless wisdom.
Barclay made a fumbling gesture.
"Look here, I didn't know—call the brute off—I never tried——" He was stuttering. The defiant arrogance had gone out of him. He had become curiously afraid. Vahana whistled again, and within a foot of Barclay the adder recoiled, hissing resentfully, and swung to one side. Vahana held out his wrist and the sinuous body twisted itself about him in a monstrous bracelet. Barclay watched, with a sick fascination. His fear had been neither physical nor passing. In some odd way the incident had shattered his self-assurance, even his self-control.
"I didn't know——" he began again. "It must just have been chance. I had never tried——"
His voice failed, and died into a shaken silence. The reptile, lying with its head on the back of Vahana's fleshless hand, held the Eurasian in the malevolent circle of its watchfulness. Its beady, unflinching eyes neither appeared to move nor to be fixed on any definite object, yet when Barclay shifted his position they did not leave his face. Thus they remained, staring at each other. Vahana had sunk into an apparent apathy of meditation. But it was no more than an appearance. Between the three there was now a living, feverish communication.