The Argosy — page 241: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

224 About Snakes. the fray—Venus crouching as if about to spring at its neck, and the snake poised above her. But a prompt action on my part saved poor pussy. Having a towel in my hand, I waved it suddenly before them, and this caused the cobra to slink back into the bath-room. I then shut the bath- room door, and Venus and I were safe for the nonce. There was the enemy secure in his prison, and the next thought was how to “do” for him. Going out into the verandah I called my servant, told him what had occurred, and bade him go into the bazaar and fetch some snake-charmers. Presently they arrived with two baskets of live snakes, a small tom-tom and musical pipes. ‘They sat down at a distance of about thirty feet from the door of the bath-room leading out into the garden, opened their baskets and began their music. My servant then pushed. open the door of the bath-room, and we waited the result. Stirred by the music, the snakes in the basket soon became uncommonly lively, twisting themselves about in fantastic contortions, and two or three twining round the naked bodies of the snake- charmers. Whether attracted by the music, the presence of other snakes, or the possible hope of escape, I know not; but soon his satanic majesty, a very demon of a cobra, par excellence, emerged from the bath-room, raised himself on the first step, and, with violent hissing, seemed to challenge and defy us. This lasted for three or four minutes; then the cobra descended to the next step and went through the same performance as before, then to the third and fourth steps, till at length he reached mother earth. Fully twenty minutes was occupied in this cautious progression, and during the whole time the music became more and more vigorous and the snakes more and more lively. Having reached the ground the cobra made for his brother snakes, and soon approached their baskets. Then, to my utter amazement, one of the snake-men ran his hand up the cobra’s neck and gripped him tightly under the head, so that he was harmless. It was a plucky act, for the cobra was a monster of nearly six feet; and how he did lash about him with his tail when thus captured! Thwack, thwack, thwack; his blows on the man’s naked body sounded like distant pistol-shots. _ But cui bono all this storm and tempest? he was a prisoner, and the evil hour had come. The first thing the snake-charmer did was to root out the fangs with a small steel instrument—in fact, to draw his teeth. Having done this and rendered the cobra innocuous, he threw him on the ground among the other snakes. And then what a devilish revelry ensued. Twistings, contortions, intertwinings, hissings—it was a comedy of angry but harmless snakes! But the end had come, and I was to have my revenge for my own as well as Venus’s sake, so Gomilcbooks.co