P'raps he send that snake.

No trouble if know how.
Well, we show you much better snake Kendahland.

But you no sit on _him_, Mr.Bena." To me, I know not why, there was something horrible in all this jocosity, something that gave me the creeps as always does the sight of a cat playing with a mouse.

I felt even then that it foreshadowed terrible things.

How _could_ these men know the details of occurrences at which they were not present and of which no one had told them?
Did that strange "tobacco" of theirs really give them some clairvoyant power, I wondered, or had they other secret methods of obtaining news?
I glanced at poor Savage and perceived that he too felt as I did, for he had turned quite pale beneath his tan.