those bushes."

"Shall I come, sir?"

"No; I'll keep away from where the thing lies. It is coiled-up, and I
only saw its head."

"Better mind, sir: they're rum things. Only got one inch o' neck one
moment, and the next they're holding on by their tails, and seem to have
three foot."

"I'll take care," said Brazier. "Stand from below; I shall cut the stem
at once."

There was the sharp sound of the hatchet, as he gave a well-directed
cut, and then a rustling, and the gorgeous bunch of flowers dropped,
with all its bulbous stems and curious fleshy elongated leaves, right on
the top of the clump of bushes beneath the great bough.

"All right!" cried Rob: "not hurt a bit. Oh, how beautiful!"

"Mind, will you!" cried Shaddy, savagely: "do you hear?"

He whipped out his knife as he stepped forward, and made a rapid cut
horizontally above the bunch of orchids. For as Rob approached, with
outstretched hand, to lift off this, the first-fruits of their
exploration, a little spade-shaped head suddenly shot up with two
brilliant eyes sparkling in the sun, was drawn back to strike, and
darted forward.

But not to strike Rob's defenceless hand, for Shaddy's keen knife-blade
met it a couple of inches below the gaping jaws, cut clean through its
scale-armed skin, and the head dropped among the lovely petals of the
orchis, while the body, twisting and twining upon itself in a knot, went
down through the bush and could be heard rustling and beating the leaves
out of sight.

There was a peculiar grey look on Rob's face as he looked at Shaddy.

"Only just in time, master," said the latter. "It'll be a lesson to you
both in taking care."

Rob shuddered; but, making an effort, he said, laughing dismally, "I
don't suppose it was a venomous snake, after all."

"Praps not," said Shaddy drily. "There, lift the bunch down with the
bar'l of your gun. Shove the muzzle right in."

"You do it, Joe," whispered Rob; "I feel a bit sick. It's the sun, I
think."

Just then Mr Brazier, who had been scrambling down the trunk of the
huge tree by means of the parasites, which gave endless places for hold,
dropped to the ground, and stood beating and shaking himself, to get rid
of the ants and other insects he had gathered in his trip up to the
branch.

"Ah! that's right, Giovanni," he said; "no, I must call you Joe, as Rob
does."

"Do, please, sir; it's ever so much shorter. Here it is," he continued,
as he lifted the bunch o