[CHAPTER XXVII]
THE TRANSPORTING OF NODDY
“Just a little lower down, Ned. That’s it. Now to the left, there’s a big bunch of ’em there. No, that’s too much! Back up a little. Whoa! Hold me there!”
Jerry was in the motor room, working the connections to the dangling wires by means of which it was hoped to electrocute the serpents that had made prisoners of Noddy and his cronies in the hut on Snake Island. Ned was in the pilot house, directing the course of the Comet. The professor and Bob stood by, ready to lend whatever assistance was needed, while the prisoners in the hut, standing in the door, ready for an instant retreat, watched with anxious eyes the preparations for their rescue.
“Are you going to try and electrocute every snake?” asked Bob of his tall chum.
“As many as we can, Chunky.”
“But that will take quite a while, to drag the wires across every one.”
“We won’t have to do that,” replied Jerry, as he looked through the plate glass window in the floor of the motor room, one hand on the switch that controlled the electrical current, while in the other he grasped a speaking tube, by which he gave orders to Ned in the pilot house. “You see, Bob, the snakes’ bodies are moist, and moisture is a good conductor of electricity. So if I can drag a live wire over a bunch of snakes, and only touch one, the current will go through all of ’em, and kill the whole lot. They’ll help to kill themselves.”
“I see!” exclaimed Bob.
“Watch now, we’re going to begin!” cried Jerry, and his chum, looking down, saw the wires carrying the powerful current writhe and twist about, almost like snakes themselves. From the exposed ends there shot out a shower of blue sparks.
[Suddenly one of the conductors touched a mass of snakes], that seemed tied in knots. A moment before the snakes had been twining in and out, hissing stridently. The next instant they were as if turned to stone, for they had been killed at once.