up. "No," he said, "you shall give him the _coup de grace_, Nat;" and
feeling no fear now I finished the loading of my gun and went in among
the trees.

"Fire at its head, Nat," cried my uncle; but it was not easy to see it,
for the creature kept on twining about in a wonderfully rapid way; but
at last I caught it as the head came from behind a tree trunk, fired,
and the monster leaped from the ground and fell back in a long straight
line, perfectly motionless, till Ebo darted in to give it a final thump
with his club, when, to my astonishment, the blow seemed to electrify
the creature, which drew itself up into a series of waves, and kept on
throbbing as it were from end to end.

"Shall I fire again, uncle?" I said excitedly.

"No, Nat," he replied; "it would only be slaying the slain. Bravo, my
boy! you did capitally."

"But I ran away at first, uncle," I said sorrowfully. "I did not stop
when the serpent first came out."

"It was enough to make a Saint George run away from such a dragon, Nat,"
he said laughing. "I could not have believed such a serpent existed in
these isles. Let's see how long he is."

"Thirty feet, uncle," I cried excitedly.

"Your eyes magnify this morning, Nat," he said merrily. "No, my boy,"
he continued, after pacing along by the writhing creature's side; "that
serpent is barely fourteen feet long, but it is wonderfully thick for
its size, and it proves that there must be animals here such as would
form its prey."

"Shall you have it skinned, uncle?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied, handing his knife to Ebo, who readily understood what
was wanted, and leaving him to his very nasty job, my uncle and I went
in search of birds of paradise.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

ANOTHER FISHING TRIP.

We had a long tramp after the birds of paradise that day, but did not
get one. We shot some lovely sun-birds though, and a couple of thrushes
such as we had not seen before. Our walk took us well in sight of the
sea once more, and we began to have a pretty good idea of the form of
the island. But the more we went about the more my uncle was satisfied
that it was only a matter of time to make here a glorious collection of
the birds of the eastern islands. We saw four different kinds of birds
of paradise in our walk, though we did not get one on account of their
shyness, but we did not despair of getting over that; and at last, well
tired out, we returned to Ebo, who had hung up the serpent's