The Nearer His Hand Approached To The
Head Of The Snake, The More The Reptile's Body Recoiled.
Looking
steadfastly at the stone they shivered, and, one by one, dropped
as if paralyzed.
The buni then made straight for our sceptical
colonel, and made him an offer to try the experiment himself. We
all protested vigorously, but he would not listen to us, and chose
a cobra of a very considerable size. Armed with the stone, the
colonel bravely approached the snake. For a moment I positively
felt petrified with fright. Inflating its hood, the cobra made
an attempt to fly at him, then suddenly stopped short, and, after
a pause, began following with all its body the circular movements
of the colonel's hand. When he put the stone quite close to the
reptile's head, the snake staggered as if intoxicated, its hissing
grew weak, its hood dropped helplessly on both sides of its neck,
and its eyes closed. Drooping lower and lower, the snake fell at
last on the ground like a stick, and slept.
Only then did we breathe freely. Taking the sorcerer aside we
expressed our desire to buy the stone, to which he easily assented,
and, to our great astonishment, asked for it only two rupees. This
talisman became my own property and I still keep it. The buni
asserts, and our Hindu friends confirm the story, that it is not
a stone but an excrescence. It is found in the mouth of one cobra
in a hundred, between the bone of the upper jaw and the skin of
the palate.
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