"Fear." Rhys Davies.

One-minute review: Alone in the train compartment, the boy eyes its only other passenger—a man from India with a basket on his lap. There is a sickening odor and a feeling of unease in the boy. The man from India hums louder and louder and finally opens the basket and out comes a drugged cobra writhing toward the lips of the man from India. The boy reacts in horror. The snake turns angrily toward the boy, but the snake charmer quiets the snake. At the next station, the boy leaps from the train before it even stops and runs away across the field.

75 Short Masterpieces: Stories from the World’s Literature. Ed. Roger B. Goodman. New York: Bantam Books. 1961.