"Oo-o-oh!" whimpered Jackal, "is Nag the Cobra to come here among us?"
Even Hathi trembled, and blowing softly through his trumpet, said: "Oh, Sa'-zada, I who am a Lord of the Jungle, fearing not any Dweller therein, feel great pains this evening. I am sure that hay is musty and has disagreed with me. If you do not mind, Little Brother, I will go back to my stall and lie down."
"Will Deboia the Climber come also, Little Master?" asked Magh. "If so, I think my Terrier Pup is feeling unwell; I will take him to my cage and wrap him in his blanket. I hate snake stories, anyway."
"Hiz-z-z!" laughed Python, who was already there. "Lords of the Jungle indeed! When I strike or throw a loop, or go swift as the wind through the Jungle—Thches-s-s! but I am no boaster. See our friends. When the smallest of my kind are to be here each one makes his excuses."
"Never fear, Comrades," Sa'-zada assured the frightened animals, "Nag the Cobra, and Karait, and all the others will behave themselves if they are left alone. Only don't move about, that's all. The first law when Snakes are about is—keep still."
"Yes, we like quietness," assented Python. "Once there was a fussy old Buffalo Bull who used to come to my pool and stir up the mud until it was scarce fit to live in. In the end I threw a loop around his neck, and he became one of the quietest Bulls you ever saw in your life."
"Now, Comrades," said Sa'-zada, as he returned accompanied by the Dwellers of the Snake House, "Hamadryad, the King Cobra, has promised us a story."
"Look at my length," cried Hamadryad, drawing his yellow and black mottled body through many intricate knots like a skein of colored silk; "think you I was born this way just as I am? At first—that was up in the Yoma Hills in Burma—I was not much larger than a good-sized hair from Tiger's mustache, and since then it has been nothing but adventure. Even my Mother, where she had us hid in a pile of rocks covered with ferns, had to fight for our lives."
"Phuff!" retorted Boar, disdainfully, "many a nest of Cobra eggs have I rid the world of."
"Not of my kind, I'll warrant," snorted Python, blowing his foul breath like a small sirocco almost in Pig's face. "Of Nag, or Hamadryad's family, perhaps, yes, for, know you, Comrades, what Nagina does with her eggs? Lays them in the sun to hatch apsi (of themselves). But my Mother—ah, you should have seen her, Comrades; all the eggs gathered in a heap, and her great, beautiful body—much like my own in color—wound tenderly about them until the young came forth. Perhaps a matter of two moons and never a bite for her to eat all the time. That's what I call being a genuine Mother."