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"'When you first come, says he, 'ye think ye'll leave right away. But they hold out your first month's pay for your passage over, and by that time the tropics has its grip on ye. Ye're surrounded by a ragin' forest full of disreputable beasts lions and baboons and anacondas waitin' to devour ye. The sun strikes ye hard, and melts the marrow in your bones.
"I never heard a serpent do anything but hiss, my lad, though they say the anacondas make strange thunder in the North American forests." "It might be a large crocodile." "Yes, it might," said the major; "but if it was, the noise is something quite new to me." "It is more likely to be some terrible beast here that we never heard of before, sir," faltered Mark.
A vast pulpy mass, furlongs in length and breadth, of a glancing cream-colour, lay floating on the water, innumerable long arms radiating from its centre, and curling and twisting like a nest of anacondas, as if blindly to clutch at any hapless object within reach.
I rather suspect that, having seen the creature, he had bolted not unwisely, for it would have swallowed him at a gulp. I hinted this to the doctor, who at first repudiated the idea, but acknowledged that Jumbo was more experienced with regard to alligators than anacondas. Our shots, and shouts had been heard by Gerald and Tim, who now appeared, and congratulated the doctor on his escape.
In vain we said that they were harmless as kittens, and tried to persuade ourselves that their little bright eyes were pretty, and that their serpentine movements were in the exact line of beauty: for the life of us, we could not help remembering their family name and connections; we thought of those disagreeable gentlemen the anacondas, the rattlesnakes, and the copper-heads, and all of that bad line, immediate family friends of the old serpent to whom we are indebted for all the mischief that is done in this world.
Guess these anacondas must have the nine lives of a cat!" "Well," remarked Frank, "you must have forgotten that among boys it's said that a snake won't die till sundown. I've seen one's tail wiggle hours after we thought the thing was stone dead. There, he's moving off into the forest, and a good riddance.
After much questioning, in bad Portuguese, broken English, and remarkable signs, Martin succeeded in drawing from the old trader the information that anacondas of a large size are often in the habit of thus bolting horses and oxen at a mouthful. There is not the slightest exaggeration in this fact.
It is wonderful how Nature provides for the taking off and keeping down of her monsters, creatures that carry things only by force or fraud: your foxes, wolves, and bears; your anacondas, tigers, and lions; and your cunning or ferocious men of prey, of whom they are the types.
"Be ready to fire," said Brace hurriedly. "It is sure to come up again to try and creep into a tree." "No," said Briscoe quietly. "He won't show himself again for hours." "Nonsense," said Brace impatiently; "it would be drowned." Briscoe smiled good-humouredly. "Drowned?" he said. "Just about as much as an eel would. Nice place this for a bathe, what with the alligators and the anacondas.
I was not before aware that anacondas of any size were to be found in Trinidad; indeed, Camo had told us that he had never seen one, and that at all events they were very rare. We now turned our attention to Jose, who had not yet recovered from his terror. He sat moaning on the ground, and feeling his limbs, as if still uncertain whether or not they were broken.
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