THE KING COBRA. 
35 
down came the tree. Not half-an-hour could have passed 
since the deed was done, so the perpetrator must have 
fled at the sound of my footsteps. I went on my way, 
but had not gone far when I spied two village youths 
skulking about the jungle. They looked at me, and I 
looked at them and knew by natural divination that 
they were guilty. Then I saw them furtively slipping 
something into their mouths. It was berries of the Char. 
Should I have been a wrong-doer if I had arrested those 
youths and simply held them fast for half-an-hour among 
the lower branches of the fallen tree, that its natural 
guardians, the red ants, might “examine” them as the 
Romans used to examine suspected criminals? I did 
not do that, but I did something else. I will not tell 
what I did. 
Now all these fruits and flowers and tender leaves are 
food for one thing or another, so I see that butterflies, 
which have been scarce for months, are appearing again, 
and bees are gathering honey, and many of the birds 
are busy about their nests. On every hand I hear the 
great Golden-backed Woodpecker hammering at the 
trees, and parrots are rushing wildly through the sky 
in a noisy state of excitement about their domestic affairs. 
D 2 
