A shudder crept over the watchers as a huge brown head, with two white circles on the back of the neck, rose slowly out of the grass, and two red-hot gleaming eyes blazed out, as an immense cobra swelled out its fearfully disgusting hood, and, rising halfway, bloated out its loathsome head, swaying to and fro, to the strange music.

"There's the mate!" quietly whispered Hardwicke to Simpson.

The snake now showed its greasy belly, like dirty stained marble, and the lithe boy, circling behind it, warily essayed to drop the red earthen pot over its head.
But one of the excited servants, stealing up, had released a little mongoose, which now bravely darted upon its deadly enemy.
Seven times did the active little animal dart upon the huge reptile, in a confusedly vicious series of attacks and close in a deadly conflict, and, when, at last, the snake charmer walked disgustedly away, the little ferret's sharp teeth were transfixed in the throat of its dead enemy.
A handful of silver to the snake catcher and his boy sent them away delighted, while the wounded mongoose, having greedily sucked the blood of the dead cobra, wandered away in triumph, creeping on its belly into the rank grass in search of the life-saving herb which it alone can find, to cure the venom-inflamed wounds of the deadly "naja." The silent duel was over, and the bodies of the dreadful vipers were hastily buried.
"I shall call this afternoon, at five, to ask Miss Johnstone if she has entirely recovered," gravely said Captain Hardwicke to Mademoiselle Justine Delande, when the still excited Swiss woman poured forth her congratulations to the young hero of this morning's episode.

Hardwicke was standing with his gloved hand grasping the mettlesome "Garibaldi's" bridle.

Justine Delande threw her arms around the neck of the noble horse and kissed his sleek brown cheek.