So we came. The temple door was open. The priests were gone—no one has to watch a Naga temple at night. The dread of Siva is enough to protect it. A rift in the temple roof let in a shaft of white moonlight. It struck upon the image of Siva. The image was seated on a white ox, carved of some white stone. A sash around the image was made up of human heads; it had six arms, each covered with carved snakes that were so lifelike they seemed to writhe in the wavering light. In the middle of the god’s forehead was the mark of the third eye—the scar of Siva. We went slowly down toward the image. Before it was a huge chest. Nagy N’Yang motioned me to sit on it. She sat beside me. Again I pleaded with her for my heart’s desire. She pushed me away. “You are afraid to be near me,” I mocked. “Hush,” she pleaded. “I am afraid—of yielding to you.” I moved to clasp her, my heart leaping at her confession. She smote her little hands sharply together. I heard a shuffling of softly shod feet in the passage behind the image. Wat Na Yang, chief priest of the temple, stood before us with his yellow robes, his yellow skin, his hands calmly folded across his paunch. “What seek ye, children?” he asked. “The way of love,” I laughed. I plunged my hand into my robe and felt the gold against my middle. In the great chest on which we sat something awoke to life. I heard a stir, a rustle, a noise as of straining. “Nagy speaks,” the priest warned. I felt the Laos girl shudder by my side. “What is it?” I asked. I stood up. A creeping horror came over me. Nagy N’Yang sprang up as I did and flung back the lid of the great chest with a strength I had not expected. Out over her shoulder shot a long coil, then another. When she stood erect in the moon-glow, a great rock python was wrapped about her matchless form. The mark of Siva on her forehead gleamed against her ivory brow like an evil blotch, yet it did not take from her beauty, her alluring grace; nor did the immense bulk of the python bear her down. “The great serpent knows his own,” whispered the yellow priest. He pointed with his fat forefinger. I saw the red tongue of the python play over the ivory bosom of the girl. Yet I did not shudder. It seemed fitting. They were so in harmony with their surroundings. The eyes of the python blazed in the moon-glow like rubies of the pigeon-blood hue, then like garnets, then like glow-worms; then they sank to a lower range of colors and finally to rest. He was asleep under her caresses. She patted his wedge-shaped head, soothing him. Ah, that it had been my head she thus fondled! Suddenly Nagy N’Yang seized the great serpent just back of the head, uncoiled it from her with a free, quick succession of movements and cast it into the great chest again. Then, with a curious indrawing of the breath, as if relieved from a nerve strain, she sat down on the chest. “Well have I seen,” I said to her. “But little do I understand.” “I may not wed,” she said. “I am Siva’s.”