ot, they rapidly disappeared from sight.

"The rhino soon got tired and tackled the wolves and hyenas--what was
left of them. They had reduced their number to two of each kind; but
this was too small to admit of two against one, so they were now
dodging each other, snarling bravely enough, but not fighting.

"The rhino caught a hyena on his tusk, tossed him in air, caught him as
he fell, sent him flying again, and then stamped his life out. This
seemed to settle the fate of the other hyena, for immediately the two
remaining wolves got at him. But rhino's next victim was a wolf, which
he disposed of as quickly.

"This left two cowards to fight for the supremacy; but the fight was
taken out of them. They slunk apart and did not meet again.

"Now, here was the condition of things when a new factor intruded upon
the problem: the lion was nursing his hurts, forward of the house, out
of sight; the hippo had gone to sleep from sheer weariness and disgust;
the last wolf and hyena were prowling round, avoiding each other; the
python and the boa had swallowed two-thirds of each other's length; the
rhino was wandering round, looking for a scrap; the kicking zebras and
wild asses had grown tired and called it a draw, and the porcupines,
three or four of them, had finished their inspection of their
environment and had snuggled down in various places to await
developments.

"The new factor was a green sea that lifted aboard amidships and
flooded the waist of the ship. Of course, the quick movers of the lot
got forward or aft, out of the way of the water surging back and forth
across the deck; but the poor porcupines were drowned before the water
ran out the scuppers. And when it had gone out, we saw what we had not
seen before--the small, poisonous cobras.

"They had come up, but had kept out of sight until that sea washed them
round; then, as the water shallowed on the deck, they made for the
masts or the rigging and began to climb. It's hard to drown a snake,
you know.

"There were at least two dozen of the reptiles, and it looked bad for
us fellows aloft. Did you ever see a snake climb a rope? He goes up in
a sort of wriggling spiral, wrapped loosely round it, but shifting his
different sections up for a fresh grip. The other fellows climbed to
the topmast-crosstrees and looked down; but the snakes stopped at the
eyes of the rigging, or the tops, and rested.

"Then came a second new factor in our problem: a sea came aboar