ld can give. What the mind
knows and fears has too much dominion afterward. . . . The appalling
power and beauty of the cobra fascinated me. I have never quite
forgotten. There was a lolling trailing grace about the lifted length,
the head slightly inclined to us, the hood but partly spread--something
winged in the undulation, a suggestion of that which we could not see,
faintly like the whir of a humming bird's wings. That is it--an
intimation of forces we had not senses to register--also colours and
sounds! . . . My hand was lost in the great hand. My uncle did not
turn back. He was speaking. There was that about his tones which you
had to listen for--a low softness that you had to listen to get. Yes,
it was to the cobra that he spoke.

". . . There was never a poem to me like those words, but they did not
leave themselves in continuity. I could not say the sentences again.
I seem to remember the vibration--some sense of the mysterious, kindred
with all creatures--and a vast flung scroll of wisdom and poetry, as if
the serpents had been a great and glorious people of blinding,
incredible knowledges--never like us--but all the more marvellous for
their difference! . . . And the cobra hung there, his eyes darkening
under the gentleness of the voice--then reddening again like fanned
embers. . . .

"Then I heard my uncle ask to be permitted to pass, saying that he
brought no harm to the mother, undoubtedly near, nor to the baby
cobras--only good-will; but that it was not well for a man and a little
girl to be prevented from passing along a man-path. . . . It was only
a moment more that the way was held from us. There was no rising at
all, to fighting anger. A cobra doesn't, you know, until actual
attack. In leisurely undulations, he turned and entered the deeper
growths. A moment later my uncle pointed to the lifted head in the
shadows. One had need to be magic-eyed to see. We went on a little
way and walked back. It was not that we had to pass--but that we must
not be obstructed." . . .

This was the India that astonished Skag more than all hunter tales,
more than any hunter prowess; but there were always two sides. . . .
The weeks were unlike any others he had ever known. The mystery
deepened between him and Carlin. Almost the first he had heard of her
was that she was "unattainable"--yet _they_ had known each other at
once. . . . Still Carlin _was_ unattainable; forever above and beyond.
Su