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The green, cable-like roots of this plant are afloat, forming at some points heavy windrows. Some say they are torn up from the bottom by the alligators; but it is more probable that they are loosened and broken by the continual tugging of the divers. The alligators are not vegetarians, and they are not using their snouts much at this season.
Lest some pilgrim of erring judgment should mistake the horns for short ones, or misapprehend the nature of the business conducted within, the white false front of the building proclaimed in letters of black a foot high: LONG HORN SALOON. While beneath the legend was depicted a fat, vermilion clad cowboy mounted upon a tarantula-bodied, ass-eared horse of pink, in the act of hurling a cable-like rope which by some prodigy of dexterity was made to describe three double-bows and a latigo knot before its loop managed to poise in mid-air above the head of a rabbit-sized baby-blue steer whose horns exceeded in length the pair of Texas monstrosities that graced the doorway.
The truth of this was very soon afterward rather unpleasantly demonstrated, for as George was battling with an exceptionally thick tangle of thorns which obstructed his way, he suddenly felt beneath his right foot a thick, cable-like something that yielded and squirmed beneath his tread, and like a flash there came a fierce hiss instantly followed by a sharp blow upon his boot.
It came surging and hurling down trees and roots and rocks and mud intermingling in a chaos of grand confusion, the great cable-like creepers twining like snakes in agony, and snapping as if they were mere strands of packthread; timber crashing; rock grinding, sometimes bursting like cannon shots, and the whole plunging into the water and raising a great wave that swept the alligators from the mud-flats, and swallowed up the reeds and rushes, sending herons, kingfishers, and flamingoes screaming into the air, and dashing high into the jungle on the opposite shore.
Seizing a cable-like arm, he pulled the outlandish head down, the while the full power of his mighty right leg drove a heavy service boot into the place where scaly neck and head joined. The Nevian fell, and instantly Costigan leaped at the leader, ahead of the girl. Leaped; but dropped to the floor, again paralyzed.
In the length he attains, and in his baleen, the Fin-back resembles the right whale, but is of a less portly girth, and a lighter color, approaching to olive. His great lips present a cable-like aspect, formed by the intertwisting, slanting folds of large wrinkles. His grand distinguishing feature, the fin, from which he derives his name, is often a conspicuous object.
Supplemented by the undulatory movement of a long continuation of his tail, it was his way of swimming, good enough to enable him to escape his enemies; this, and riding at anchor in a current by his cable-like appendage, constituting his main occupation in life.
Just between his window and that of Adela there were the mouldering remains of a carved shield, with surmounting helmet and crest, and a decayed motto below, while to right and left the ivy had covered the front with its dark-green glossy leaves, among which the cable-like runners could be seen.
But here they were mingled with the more enduring hard-wood growths of the later tropical forests; and only these were strong enough to support the massive, strangling coils of the cable-like lianas, which wound their way up the huge trunks and reached out in aërial, swaying bridges from tree-top to tree-top.
The boy reached out in the darkness, and gathered in the supple cable-like neck till Kaa's head rested on his shoulder, and then he told him all that had happened in the Jungle that night. "Wise I may be," said Kaa at the end; "but deaf I surely am. Else I should have heard the pheeal. Small wonder the Eaters of Grass are uneasy. How many be the dhole?" "I have not yet seen.
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