"Oh, of course it would not be so pleasant then," said Harry; "but generally it would be glorious, wouldn't it, Phra?"
"I should get tired of it after a time, I think," was the reply.
"Pooh! I shouldn't. Look how the men are enjoying it."
Harry nodded towards their people, who had all landed to take their meal on shore, leaving the boat free to their superiors, and certainly the party looked very happy, squatted round the fire, in spite of the heat; while the smoke curled up in great wreaths in company with the suffocating carbonic acid gas evolved by the burning wood.
"Yes, they look happy enough, Hal," said the doctor. "They don't trouble themselves much about tablecloths or knives and forks."
In fact, the party formed quite a picture, one that it seemed a pity to disturb.
But it was disturbed, for at a word from Mike, Sree rose to dip some fresh, clear water to fill up the coffee-pot, and this done, Mike took a piece of half-burned bamboo, stirred the embers and parted them so as to make a steady place for the big coffee-pot, when there was a whirl of flame, sparks, and smoke rushing up among the boughs in a spiral, for the fire was now at its hottest.
There was no warning.
Sree had squatted down again, and Mike had seated himself, supporting himself upon one hand, leaving the other to snatch off the coffee-pot directly the brown froth began to rise with the boiling up, when bang—rush—scatter! Something fell suddenly from high up among the boughs overhead right into the fire, and as the men turned and rolled themselves away in every direction, they were bombarded as it were, by showers of red-hot embers and half-burned sticks, which were driven after them by the object which had fallen from the tree, and was now writhing, twining, and beating the burning wood and ashes till the fire was scattered over a surface some yards across.
The matter needed no explanation; it was all plain enough. After the manner of such reptiles, a good-sized boa had tied itself up in a bundle of curves, knots, and loops on a convenient bough, after a liberal meal probably of monkey, and had been fast asleep exactly over the spot where the fire was made. It had borne heat and smoke without moving until the last stir up of the embers delivered by Mike, but this had sent so stifling a flame that the sleeping serpent had been aroused, started into wakefulness, and in the heat and suffocation fallen into the flames, to writhe in agony, turning over and over in knotty convolutions, in one spot a yard or two square.