"Down on deck were those murderous wild beasts, nosing round, and only waiting for the chance of getting together. I told this to the skipper.
"'Right,' he said. 'Perhaps they'll kill each other.'
"This seemed possible a few minutes later, when the tiger and the lion met face to face. They glared and growled and spit, just like two huge tomcats, then they sailed into each other.
"It was a lively scrap. They fenced and dodged and nipped as they could, but their motions were too swift to give either a good chance at a bite. They were in the air half the time, on their backs the other half, and it seemed an even fight until the tiger, in one of his plunges, bumped into the python, who had been squirming around the deck.
"Now, a python is not poisonous; but, nevertheless, he has a strong grip of jaw. He closed his jaws on the tiger's nose, and then began a funny sight. The big, striped brute could not shake him off; but he backed away, snarling and screaming with rage and pain, forward round the house, and aft on the other side to the space abaft the main-hatch, the snake writhing like a whip-lash, and the tiger never making an effort to use his forepaws.
"It seemed as though hereditary fear had seized him, for with a few digs and blows he could have clawed him off. This fight ended by the writhing python getting too close to the boa-constrictor, who happened to be nosing his way across the deck amidships. In the twinkling of an eye, the boa wrapped himself around the python, and the tiger got away.
"Then, while the two big snakes thrashed around the deck, Mr. Bengal slunk away like a cat scared by a dog—his tail between his legs, and the fur on his back raised up so that it looked like that of a razor-backed hog.
"He went forward of the house to think it over, and the two snakes fought it out, while the lion, thinking that he had won the fight, roared and growled his defiance to the rest.
"He was too confident; the big rhinoceros looked him in the face, and the trouble was resumed.
"Mr. Lion charged; but the rhino lowered his head, caught him between the forepaws with his horn, and sent him flying over his head, with a big gash in his body. That was enough for the lion, king of beasts though he was.