branches for a few
seconds as the monster snake writhed its irresistible way through the
neighbouring bushes; and then it was gone. And as the last sounds of
its hurried retreat died away, Dick Chichester sank helplessly to the
ground, violently sick.

For a minute or two the paroxysms of vomiting were simply dreadful, and
then the feeling of horrible nausea gradually passed away, and, pulling
himself together, Dick struggled to his feet.

"That's right, lad," he heard Stukely's voice say, as he felt his
friend's encouraging pat on the shoulder. "Feel better, now? That's
capital. Faugh! what a disgusting stench! No wonder it made you sick;
I feel almost as bad myself. But I'll bet a trifle that the brute feels
a good deal worse than either of us, for I must have hit him pretty
hard; indeed if it had not been for the thick growth that baulked me and
hindered my stroke I could have cut his head clean off."

"Well, you--you--have--saved my life, Phil, and I--" gasped Dick
thickly, as he felt for the other's hand and pressed it convulsively.

"Pooh! nonsense; that's all rubbish, you know," interrupted Phil,
patting Dick on the back, "I should have cut at the brute just the same,
if thou hadst not been there. And now, if you feel all right again, let
us get the canoe out and see what she looks like; a nice mess he will
have made of her, I expect, making his lair in her; with a murrain on
him!"

"You have put something worse than a murrain on him, or I am no judge,"
laughed Dick, a trifle hysterically. "The brute will certainly die
before morning. Now, then, are you ready? Then--lift!"

With some difficulty they at length extricated the canoe from her
hiding-place, to find, a good deal to their surprise, that, apart from
two broken paddles, the craft was very little the worse for having been
made the lair of a snake so big that he must have practically filled her
from end to end. Luckily the mast, yard, and sail had been placed in
the bottom of her and so had not been broken, although almost the whole
of the boa's ponderous weight must have rested upon them. So when
presently they put her into the water, they were rejoiced to find that
although she had been lying dry for three months, so completely had she
been shielded from the sun's rays that her hull was still intact and
that she leaked not a drop. This was far better than they had dared to
hope for, so, stepping into her, appropriating the paddles of th