“Run, gentlemen, run,” shouted Smith. “He’ll be orfle savage. T’ain’t a ghost, it’s t’other half. I knowed I cut him in two when I let go with the haxe.”
“I know,” cried Oliver, excitedly.
“Yes, sir. It’s t’other half, sir,” yelled Smith, who had swung himself up on one of the stays, where he clung like a monkey. “Shoot, sir, shoot, or it’ll grow out a noo head and tail and be worse and more savager than ever.”
“Yes,” said Oliver to himself, “I’ll shoot,” and he fired both barrels of his piece as soon as he had a chance.
The effect was instantaneous. One moment the monster was writhing itself into a knot, the next it had rapidly untwined, and was gliding over the bulwarks, the later part rolling over rapidly, like a huge piece of cable, dimly seen, as it was carried down by an anchor.
“That’s him,” cried Smith; “but you didn’t kill him, sir, or he wouldn’t have got over the side like that. It was best half on him. My: what a whopper!”
Oliver ran to the side, followed by his friends, but they could see nothing below in the darkness, only hear the rustling noise of the beast writhing farther and farther away, the sound ceasing at the end of a minute, when they turned inboard.
“You didn’t kill the other half,” said Mr Rimmer, laughing.
“No, I wish I had,” cried Oliver. “That was the beast that startled me. These things go in pairs, and the one you killed there was the second one come in search of its mate. Is it dead?” he continued, giving the long lithe body of the reptile upon the deck a thrust with his foot.
The answer came from the serpent itself, for it began to glide along under the bulwarks once more, making now, blindly enough, for the gangway, and as no one seemed disposed to stop it, the creature disappeared through the side and down the sloping planks to the earth.