Fire Island Part 8

"What?" cried the mate, as the three naturalists headed the shout of laughter which rose from the crew.

"Ah, you may laugh," grumbled the man, wiping the perspiration from his face, "but there it is all twissen up by the wheel and it made a snap at me as I got close up."

"You're a duffer," roared the mate. "Look here, my lads, he has seen the big hawser."

"No, sir," cried Wriggs, striking one hand heavily into the other, as a burst of laughter arose. "I see that there sarpent's sperrit twissen up round the wheel and the binnacle, and if you don't believe me, go and see. Ah! Look out: here it comes."

The man made a dash to get right forward out of the way, but, in his excitement, tripped over the body of the serpent lying gently heaving upon the deck, went headlong, yelling in his fear, and rolled over and over to the side.

But little attention was paid to him, the men thinking of nothing else but retreating, for from out of the gloom aft, and making a strange rustling in its serpentine course, a reptile, largely magnified by dread and the gloom, came gliding towards them with its crest raised about eight inches from the planks.

For a moment or two, as the men hurried away, the little party from the cabin stood staring in wonder.

"Run, gentlemen, run," shouted Smith. "He'll be orfle savage. T'ain't a ghost, it's t'other half. I knowed I cut him in two when I let go with the haxe."

"I know," cried Oliver, excitedly.

"Yes, sir. It's t'other half, sir," yelled Smith, who had swung himself up on one of the stays, where he clung like a monkey. "Shoot, sir, shoot, or it'll grow out a noo head and tail and be worse and more savager than ever."

"Yes," said Oliver to himself, "I'll shoot," and he fired both barrels of his piece as soon as he had a chance.

The effect was instantaneous. One moment the monster was writhing itself into a knot, the next it had rapidly untwined, and was gliding over the bulwarks, the later part rolling over rapidly, like a huge piece of cable, dimly seen, as it was carried down by an anchor.

"That's him," cried Smith; "but you didn't kill him, sir, or he wouldn't have got over the side like that. It was best half on him. My: what a whopper!"

Oliver ran to the side, followed by his friends, but they could see nothing below in the darkness, only hear the rustling noise of the beast writhing farther and farther away, the sound ceasing at the end of a minute, when they turned inboard.

"You didn't kill the other half," said Mr Rimmer, laughing.

"No, I wish I had," cried Oliver. "That was the beast that startled me.

These things go in pairs, and the one you killed there was the second one come in search of its mate. Is it dead?" he continued, giving the long lithe body of the reptile upon the deck a thrust with his foot.

The answer came from the serpent itself, for it began to glide along under the bulwarks once more, making now, blindly enough, for the gangway, and as no one seemed disposed to stop it, the creature disappeared through the side and down the sloping planks to the earth.

"Look at that!" said Smith to one of his mates, as he lightly dropped on deck, "young Mr Lane thinks that's another sarpent, but we knows better, eh, lad? I chopped that there beggar clean in half, and one bit went forrard and t'other went aft."

"Yes, that's it," said Billy Wriggs, "and it was the head half as went aft."

"Nay, it was the tail," said Smith. "This here was the head bit."

"Now, what's the good o' bein' so orbstinit, mate," said Wriggs, reproachfully. "Think I don't know? I tell yer it was the head bit as went and twissened itsen round the binnacle and wheel, a-lying in wait for us poor sailors to go there and take our trick, when he meant to gobble us up. Don't matter how long a sarpent is, he can't bite you with his tail end."

"No; but he could sting with it; couldn't he?" said another man.

"Well, yes," said Smith, thoughtfully, "he might do summat o' that sort.

If so be as we finds him lying dead. But I doubts it. Them sort o'

beasts, mates, is full o' bad habits, and I shouldn't a bit wonder if this here critter crawls right away into the woods and lay hisself neatly together to make a fit, and then waits till it all grows together again, like graftin'."

"Think so, mate?" said Wriggs.

"Ay, that I do. Nat'ral hist'ry's the rummiest thing as I knows on, and that there young Mr Lane, as is a nat'ralist by purfession, knows a wonderful lot about it. Talk about conjuring; why, that's nowhere. I see him one day take a drop out of a bucket o' water on a slip o' gla.s.s and sets it on the cabin table."

"Why, you don't live in the cabin," growled one of the men.

"Yes, I do, mate, when he asts me to carry him in a bucket o' water, so now then! Well, matey, he goes then to a little m'ogany box and he takes out a tool like a young spy-gla.s.s, and sets the slip under it, and shoves his eye to one end and screws it about a bit, and then he says, says he, 'Now then Smith, would you like a peep into another world?'

'Yes, sir,' I says, 'I should.' 'Then just clap yer hye here,' he says, and I did, and there you could see right into a big sea, with a whacking great brute lying in the bottom, like a sugar hogshead, with a lot o'

borcome structures got their heads in, and their long tails all waving about outside. He said it was a fusorior or something o' that kind, and all in that drop o' water, as looked as clear as cryschal when he took it out o' the bucket. Ah, he can show you something, he can."

"I know," said Billy Wriggs, "it was a mykreescope."

"Dessay it was," said Smith. "It might ha' been anything. It's wonderful what there is in nat're, my lads. Pity though as a man's hands and legs and arms don't grow again, as some things does."

"Tchah! They don't," said Billy Wriggs.

"What? Why, they do, lots of 'em. Don't lobsters' claws grow again, and lizards tails, and starfishes arms? What yer got to say to that?

Mr Lane tells me that there's some kinds o' worms as when you cuts their heads off they grows again, and their tails too. There we are, though--to-morrow morning."

The man was right, for day was breaking, and, after the manner of the tropics, where there is scarcely any dawn, the sun soon rose to light up the desolation around the ship, where the earthquake wave had swept along, piling up sand and rock with heaps formed of torn-up trees, lying near the pools of water which remained in the depressions of the sand.

"Swabs," cried Mr Rimmer, coming forward, and buckets of water being fetched, the unpleasant stains left by the wounded serpents were soon moved, though the shot marks remained.

While the men were cleansing the deck and removing the traces left by the storm, a little party of three, all well armed, set off to try and trace the serpents and to get a truthful knowledge of their size, the darkness having given rather an exaggerated idea of their dimensions.

In addition, if found dead, it was proposed to skin them for specimens, and to this end Smith accompanied them, declaring his willingness to master his fear of the reptiles and help in any way.

Before leaving the ship they took a good look round, at what promised to be a beautiful resting-place, as soon as the vegetation began to spring again, as it was certain to do in that moist tropical heat. Then taking it for granted that the serpents would make for cover, the steps of the little party were directed towards the nearest trees, a clump upon a broad elevated spot which had escaped the devastations caused by the wave and not many hundred yards from the ship.

"Seems rum, gentlemen," said Smith as they shouldered their guns, and strode off with a wonderful feeling of elasticity and freedom, after their long cooping up on board ship.

"What does?" said Oliver.

"The brig, sir. Ups and downs in life we see. Here was she built ash.o.r.e, launched and then goes on her voyages, and then all at once she is launched again t'other way on, as you may say, and run up on land to stay till she dies."

"Unless we dig a ca.n.a.l back to the sea and float her, Smith," said Oliver.

"Zackly so, sir, but you'd want ten hundred thousand n.i.g.g.e.rs to do the work."

"And the weekly wages bill would be rather big," said Drew.

"Look out," said Oliver, who was bending down and carefully examining the ground.

"What for?" asked Panton, c.o.c.king his piece.

"The serpents. Here is some dried blood."

"And here's a mark, sir," added Smith excitedly. "One of the bits come along here."

"Yes. I can see another mark," cried Panton. "Look." He pointed to what resembled the impression that would have been made by a large yard laid in a patch of half-dried mud in a depression, for either going or coming, a serpent had evidently pa.s.sed along there.