and persuaded the man
to swallow some preparation of it. _Post hoc_, whether _propter hoc_ I
dare not say, he became unconscious and sank. Before night he was
buried.

All this did not happen in some obscure village in a remote jungle. It
happened within a mile and a half of a town controlled by a municipal
corporation which enjoys the rights and privileges of "local
self-government." In that town there was a dispensary, with a very
capable assistant-surgeon in charge, and in that dispensary I doubt not
you would have found a bottle of strong _liquor ammoniae_ and a printed
copy of the directions issued by a paternal Government for the recovery
of persons bitten by venomous serpents. But when the man was bitten the
one thing which occurred to nobody was to take him there, and when I
heard of the matter the assistant-surgeon had just left for a distant
place, passing on his way the gate of the house in which the man lay.
This was a bad case, but there is little reason to hope that it was
altogether exceptional. I am afraid there can be no question at all that
hundreds of the deaths put down to snake-bite by village punchayets
every year might with more truth be registered as "cured to death."

XII

THE COBRA BUNGALOW

A STORY OF A MONEYLENDER

Beharil Surajmul was the greatest moneylender in Dowlutpoor. He was a
man of rare talents. He remembered the face of every man who had at any
time come to borrow money of him since he began to work, as a little
boy, in his father's office, so that it was impossible to deceive him.
He had also such a miraculous skill in the making out of accounts that a
poor man who had come to him in extremity for a loan of fifty rupees, to
meet the expenses of his daughter's marriage, might go on making
payments for the remainder of his life without reducing the debt by one
rupee. In fact, it seemed to increase with each payment.

And if the matter went into court, Beharilal never failed to show that
there was still a balance due to him much larger than the original loan.
But so courteous and pleasant was the Seth in his manner to all that
such matters never went into court until the right time, of which he was
an infallible judge, for he knew the private affairs of every family in
Dowlutpoor. Then a decree was obtained and the debtor's house, or land,
was sold to defray the debt, Beharilal himself being usually the
purchaser, though not, of course, in his own name, for he was a pr