For Ned had thrown himself upon his knees, and with one end of the bow was tearing away at the straggling plants which covered the ground wherever it was not rocky or smothered by bush.
“Can’t you see, sir? Here, come and help. ’Taters!”
“What?” cried Jack.
“Yes, ’taters, sir; only little ’uns. Not so big as noo potaties at home, but ’taters they are. Look!”
“Fingers were made before forks,” says the old proverb, so under the circumstances it was not surprising that Ned began to use his hands as if they were gardener’s potato forks, and with such success that in a short time quite a little heap of the yellow tubers were dug out of the loose sandy soil, the average size being that of walnuts.
Jack set to work at once to help, but he had hardly dragged away a couple of handfuls of haulm when he started up with a cry of alarm.
Ned leaped up too and seized his spear, expecting to have to face the blacks; but the enemy was a good-sized snake which had been nestling beneath the thick stalks of the plants, and now stood up fully three feet above the tops of the growth, with head drawn back, moving to and fro as if about to launch itself forward and strike at the first who approached it.
“Stand back, Mr Jack,” cried the man, and with one mower-like sweep of his spear-handle he caught the serpent a few inches below its threatening head, and it dropped writhing at once, with its vertebras broken.
“Can’t stand any nonsense from things like that, sir,” cried Ned, as he took his spear now as if it had been a pitchfork, raised the twining reptile from among the haulms, and after carrying it a few yards, threw it cleverly right away among the bushes at the side.
“Take care, perhaps there are more,” said Jack. “So much the worse for them if there are, sir. I want the ’taters, and I’d have ’em if the place was full of boa-constrictors as big as they grow. Come on.”