"Here's a pretty go," said Conal; "and I should be sorry to sleep in that state-room until the reptile is found."
So a search was instituted instanter, and a dangerous one it was. But wherever it had taken refuge that snake could not be found.
The young fellows took rugs on deck that night, and slept on the planks.
Theirs was the forenoon watch, and when turning out to keep it, lo! that little green demon glided quietly out from Conal's very bosom, and went leaping and rolling along the deck, aft, finally tumbling down the skylight and on to the table where the captain was lingering over his breakfast.
For more than a week that snake--known to be one of the most poisonous there is--was the terror of the ship. He was in entire command fore and aft, and the skipper was nowhere. The awful, though lovely thing, appeared in so many places, moreover, that it was believed to be ubiquitous. Sometimes it would glide out of a sea-boot or a sou'wester hat. It was twice found in the sleeve of an oilskin-jacket, once it curled up for the night with Viking, and once in the pocket of the man at the wheel.
This sailor had dived his hand into the outside pocket of his coat to find his "baccy", when, instead of this, he felt the cold wriggling-wriggling thing; he gave a whoop like a Somali Indian with six inches of square-0 gin in his stomach! The scream started the snake from his lair, and he went girdling along the deck and disappeared below as usual.
But he was smashed at last and heaved far into the sea.
Strange to say, Mr. Snakey, as he was called, appeared again all alive and beautiful next morning.
"He's the d--l for sartin," said a blue-jacket. "Dead one day and squirming around the next. Yes, Bill--what else can he be but the d--l, and maybe just the same bloomin' old snake as tempted Mother Heve in the Garding of Heden!"
But this snake was killed next, and there was no more trouble after this.