“No, I only felt it strike against my leg and then press it to the side. I think I trod upon it.”
“Made its home, I suppose, in the hollow tree. But you are sure you are not hurt, my boy—only frightened?”
“I couldn’t help being frightened,” said Rob, in rather an ill-used tone.
“Nobody says you could,” said Brazier, laughing. “Master Giovanni seems to have been frightened too. Why, Rob, my lad, it would have almost frightened me into fits: I have such a horror of serpents. There, I believe after all these things are not so very dangerous.”
“Don’t know so much about that, sir,” said Shaddy. “I’ve know’d ’em coil round and squeeze a deer to death, and then swallow it.”
“Yes, a small deer perhaps; but the old travellers used to tell us about mighty boas and monstrous anacondas which could swallow buffaloes.”
“Ah! they don’t grow so big as that now, sir. I’ve seen some pretty big ones, too, in my time, specially on the side of the river and up the Amazons.”
“Well, how big—how long have you ever seen one, Naylor?”
“Never see one a hundred foot long,” said Shaddy drily.
“No, I suppose not. Come, what was the largest?”