Clara demurred at first and so did Mabel. They were used to seeing snakes behind a network of wire and glass, and they did not relish the idea of standing within a few feet of the crawling serpents in the open street. But curiosity, added to the urgings of the young men, finally conquered, and they joined the throng on the other side.
The performer, an old man with bronzed face, was squatting on his haunches playing a weird tune on a reedy instrument resembling a flute. Before him was upreared a monstrous specimen of the deadly cobra species, swaying gently to and fro and keeping time to the music. Its malignant eyes looking out from the broad head whose markings resembled a pair of spectacles had lost something of their fiery sparkle, and a slight haze spread over them, as though the creature were under a spell.
The music continued and two other snakes crawled out as if in response to a call and joined their companion in his swaying, rhythmic dance. Then the tune changed, the snakes uncoiled, and the performer took them up without the slightest fear and put them back in the basket. 209
“Suppose they should bite him!” exclaimed Mabel.
“He’s had their fangs drawn already,” returned Joe. “The old rascal’s taking no chances.”
“They say that a man lasts about half an hour after one of those fellows nips him,” observed Jim. “Somebody was telling me that over twenty thousand natives are bitten by them every year.”
A little further down the street, another fakir was giving an exhibition. He placed a small native boy in a basket that was a tight fit and put down the basket cover. Then after making mysterious signs and muttering invocations, the fakir drew a long sword and plunged it through the basket from end to end. A scream of pain came from within, and when the sword was withdrawn it was red. Again and again this was repeated until the screams died away. Then the fakir lifted up the cover and the boy sprang out safe and sound, and, showing his white teeth in a smile, went around collecting coins from the bystanders.
They wandered further among the bazaars, making purchases of curios as presents for the folks at home and adding to their personal stock of mementos. Jim secured among other things a cane made of a rare Indian wood, which while light was exceedingly strong and so pliable that it could be bent almost double like a Damascus blade. 210
But through all the chaff and fun of the day Joe was unhappy and restless. What he had read in the paper from home about himself poisoned everything for him.
He had always tried to be perfectly straight and honorable in all his business relations. His word had ever been as good as his bond. Now, at one stroke, he saw his reputation damaged perhaps beyond mending. All over the United States he had been pictured as a contract-breaker. He could see the incredulity of his friends turning gradually to contempt. He fancied he could hear them saying: