“All right, Phil,” he exclaimed, delightedly, “here she is. Now, if you will stay where you are, and widen the opening a little, so that she will pass out easily, I will go to the other end, and help you to lift her out.”
Accordingly, he proceeded to work his way along the length of the canoe, forcing the boughs aside to make a passage for himself, until he had reached to about mid-length of the canoe, when, the darkness in there being almost impenetrable in spite of the continuously flashing lightning, he reached his hand over to ascertain whether the sail and paddles were still in the craft as they had been left. As he did so he became conscious of a strong musky odour, and while he was still pondering what this might portend his hand came in contact with a cold, clammy, scaly body which his touch told him, before he hastily withdrew his hand with a low cry of astonishment and repugnance, must be not far short of as thick as his own body. And the next instant there occurred a sudden rustling that caused the canoe to shake and quiver and the paddles in her to rattle, a huge, dimly-seen shape upraised itself in the canoe, a gust of hot, fetid breath smote Dick in the face, and a loud angry hiss made itself heard even through the heavy booming of the thunder.
Chapter Fifteen.
How they escaped one great Danger, only to fall into a greater.
There was no need for Dick to ask himself, or his friend, what was the nature of this monstrous, indistinctly seen shape that upreared itself out of the canoe and poised its head within a foot of his face, its two eyes flashing baleful green fires into his as its long forked tongue flickered angrily in and out of its slightly opened jaws; he knew it at once for one of the enormous boas that dispute the sovereignty of the South American forest with the puma, and the black jaguar, that most rare and ferocious of all the cat tribe. And, for an instant, so great was his astonishment at thus unexpectedly finding himself at close quarters—nay, face to face—with a creature big enough to envelop his body half a dozen times over, and strong enough to crush him into a shapeless mass, that he was completely paralysed. He had no fear of the serpent, although he was perfectly aware of the awful danger in which he stood—he knew that in another instant the enormous body might fling its great coils about him and gradually bring into action the tremendous pressure which should crush every bone in his body to splinters—but, on the other hand, it never occurred to him to make the slightest effort to save himself from so hideous a fate.
But as he stood there perfectly quiescent for, as it seemed to him, a quarter of an hour or more—the actual length of time did not probably exceed three seconds—a sharp rattling of the dry twigs over his head and a heavy thud met his ears, a little shower of twigs and leaves rained down upon him, and at the same instant a terrific upheaval occurred in the canoe, coil upon coil the vast length of the serpent’s body leaped into view, and plunged over the side, there was a violent rustling and crackling of branches for a few seconds as the monster snake writhed its irresistible way through the neighbouring bushes; and then it was gone. And as the last sounds of its hurried retreat died away, Dick Chichester sank helplessly to the ground, violently sick.
For a minute or two the paroxysms of vomiting were simply dreadful, and then the feeling of horrible nausea gradually passed away, and, pulling himself together, Dick struggled to his feet.