“I’ll volunteer, Mr Lynton,” cried Brace; while Dan smiled and took off his coat before rolling up his shirt-sleeves.
“Will you, sir?” cried the mate; “then we’ll soon do the job; but it’s a bit nasty and slimy, you know, and I expect it will make us smell of snake for some days.”
“Never mind,” said Brace. “I’d do anything rather than lose that skin.”
There was a low growling among the men as they laid their heads together before pushing off to the ship.
“Now then,” cried the mate, “what is it? Why don’t you be off?”
“It’s all right, sir,” said the man who had first protested; “we can’t stand by and let you and Mr Brace do the job by yourselves. We four’ll help Dan peel the beggar as soon as they’ve fetched the rope from the brig.”
The boat pushed off, and the matter was discussed, the American suggesting that the best plan would be to make an incision just below where the skull was joined to the vertebrae, dislocate these so as to put a stop to all writhing, get a noose round the neck, and then it would be easy to divide the skin from throat to tail, and draw it off.
“Oh, yes, sir,” said one of the men, just as the boat reached the side of the brig; “we’ll soon manage that.”
“I say, Mr Briscoe,” said Brace, “I suppose the ants won’t be long in picking the reptile’s bones quite clean.”
“Oh, no; they and the flies would soon finish anything that was left in the way of flesh, but I was thinking of dragging the body afterwards into the river. It’s a five-and-twenty footer, though, without doubt.”