This seemed to rouse it into action, and after a more rapid gliding of one coil over the other, the creature’s evil-looking head rose up, hissing menacingly at its disturber, who raised the piece of rock with both hands above his head, and dashed it down upon the serpent’s crest, crushing it to the ground, after which the boy nimbly leaped away, to avoid the writhing of its body and the fierce whipping of the creature’s tail.
“Well done, Chicory, my brave boy,” cried Mr Rogers, patting the Zulu lad upon the shoulder.
“Yes, Chicory very brave boy,” said the lad, smiling complacently, and quite innocent of his words sounding conceited. “Chicory kill all big snake for boss. Boss boys very kind to Coffee, and father love ’em.”
This was a long speech for Chicory, who nodded and smiled, and ended by waiting his opportunity, and then seizing the boa’s tail and running away with it to stretch the creature out. But it was too heavy, and its writhings continued even after the boys had fired a charge of small shot at close quarters through the reptile’s head.
They wanted to measure it, but that was impossible from its writhings. Mr Rogers, however, made an approximate calculation, and then said, quietly,—
“I should say it was as near as can be nineteen feet long, and unusually large in girth.”
“Oh, father,” cried Jack; “it must be thirty-nine feet long.”
“Ah, Jack, my boy,” replied his father, laughing, “that’s old travellers’ measurement—and they always allowed six feet to the yard—that is, twenty-four inches to the foot; and that’s why ourang-outangs, and whales, and serpents were always so large.”
But they had not yet arrived at the end of their reptile adventures.
They waited for some time to see if the boa would cease its writhings; but the muscular contractions still continuing, and the dark tortoiseshell-like markings of brown and yellow and black glistening in the sun quite two hours after the creature might reasonably have been said to be killed, they gave it up and went further afield.