trong 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