ll a dozen or so a day, here."

"Heavens!" screamed a woman, "and you expect us to go down to certain
death there? How ungallant!"--and amid such laughter and persiflage
half a dozen men and women descended.

"But really, are there snakes?" asked Mrs. Campbell's languid tones,
curiously like her husband's, without his coarseness--for this heavy,
beefy, blear-eyed man was undoubtedly the husband whom she had never
cared to mention on shipboard.--"You know I am deathly afraid of them.
I should faint if I saw one."

Her voice showed real agitation, but her husband laughed uproariously.
Evidently he was under the influence of liquor. The girls, after one
glance at him, shrank back into the shadow, hoping they would not be
recognized by the wife. For the first time in their acquaintance of
the woman, they pitied her. To be that man's daily companion was a
degradation.

Just as Mrs. Campbell's dainty foot touched the stone floor of the
cavern, the captain saw a gliding motion in the uncertain light, and,
with the readiness of the man used to coping with danger, he sprang
forward and struck at something dark and slender, that might have been
but a crevice in the uneven floor. But it was no crevice. A hissing
sound issued from the silent, creeping thing, and with shrieks of
consternation the women fled back up the stairway, while Mr. Campbell
and the other man leaped to one corner, to get beyond the reach of its
fangs.

"Stay where you are!" shouted the captain to his daughters. "I'll
never let it get away;" and they could hear the whistle of his labored
breathing, and the loud whacking of his stick, as they cowered behind
the guide, white with terror.

It was over in a moment, and the reptile, inert and helpless, was
stretched half-way across the entrance room. The captain stood upright
and wiped his forehead.

"Come, girlies," he said, trying to speak cheerily, "let's get out of
here. We've seen enough, I guess!"

Nothing loth, they quickly followed him up the steps while the
trembling men and the guide gathered carefully around the now harmless
reptile. Amid the consternation of the ladies above, who had widely
scattered in their terror, the three were about departing unnoticed,
when Mrs. Campbell recognized them and called out,

"Is that you, Captain Hosmer--and did you kill that horrid snake. I
might have known it! You have a way of being on hand when you are
needed."

He lifted his cap, and, as t