The music continued and two other snakes crawled out as if in response to a call and joined their companion in his swaying, rhythmic dance. Then the tune changed, the snakes uncoiled, and the performer took them up without the slightest fear and put them back in the basket. "Suppose they should bite him!" exclaimed Mabel. "He's had their fangs drawn already," returned Joe. "The old rascal's taking no chances." "They say that a man lasts about half an hour after one of those fellows nips him," observed Jim. "Somebody was telling me that over twenty thousand natives are bitten by them every year." A little further down the street, another fakir was giving an exhibition. He placed a small native boy in a basket that was a tight fit and put down the basket cover. Then after making mysterious signs and muttering invocations, the fakir drew a long sword and plunged it through the basket from end to end. A scream of pain came from within, and when the sword was withdrawn it was red. Again and again this was repeated until the screams died away. Then the fakir lifted up the cover and the boy sprang out safe and sound, and, showing his white teeth in a smile, went around collecting coins from the bystanders. They wandered further among the bazaars, making purchases of curios as presents for the folks at home and adding to their personal stock of mementos. Jim secured among other things a cane made of a rare Indian wood, which while light was exceedingly strong and so pliable that it could be bent almost double like a Damascus blade. But through all the chaff and fun of the day Joe was unhappy and restless. What he had read in the paper from home about himself poisoned everything for him. He had always tried to be perfectly straight and honorable in all his business relations. His word had ever been as good as his bond. Now, at one stroke, he saw his reputation damaged perhaps beyond mending. All over the United States he had been pictured as a contract-breaker. He could see the incredulity of his friends turning gradually to contempt. He fancied he could hear them saying: "So Joe has fallen for that game, has he? Well, they say that every man has his price. No doubt Joe's price was high, but they found out what it was and bought him." Of course he had denied it, but he knew how people smiled when they read denials. And months must pass before he could get back to America and try to hunt out the author or authors of the story. He tried to hide his mood under a cover of light talk and banter, but the others felt it and sympathized with him, though all refrained from mentioning what each of them was thinking. All through the day his gloom persisted, and when night came and he had retired to the room that he and Jim occupied together he felt that it would be impossible for him to sleep.