"I'm better now," said Oliver, rising and drawing a long breath. "I
say, Mr Rimmer, I'm very sorry to have given you all this trouble."

"Don't say a word about it, sir; but don't go tumbling into any more of
these holes."

"Not if I can help it," said Oliver, smiling. "But the serpent--what
became of it?"

The mate laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

"We've got them both out here," said Drew.

"Both bits, sir?" asked Smith eagerly.

"Both nonsense, my man: both serpents! There were two. Here they are,
pretty well dead now."

Oliver forgot all about the sickening blow he had received, and his
narrow escape, in his eagerness to examine the reptiles which had caused
so much alarm, and his first steps were to ask the men to put a noose
around each, and draw them out into the open.

There was a little hesitation, but the men obeyed, and the two long
tapering creatures were soon after lying in the sun.

"Hadn't you better come and lie down for a bit?" said the mate.

"Oh, nonsense!" cried Oliver good-humouredly. "Just for a crack on the
head? I'm right enough, and I want to take the measurement of these
things before they are skinned."

"As you like," said the mate. "Then we may go back."

"That looks as if I were very ungrateful," cried Oliver, "and I'm not,
Mr Rimmer, believe me."

"Believe you? Why, of course I do, my lad," cried the mate, clapping
him warmly on the shoulder.

"And you don't want me to lie up for a thing like that, do you?"

"I want you to take care of yourself; that's all, sir. There, don't
give us another fright. I daresay you'll find plenty of other dangerous
places. But what did you say, Mr Panton--that great hole was a vent of
the mountain?"

"Yes, undoubtedly."

"What mountain, sir?"

"The one that was in eruption."

"Yes, but we don't see one!"

"We see its effects," said Panton, "and I daresay we shall see it as
soon as that line of vapour begins to clear away."

He pointed to the long misty bank in the distance, which completely shut
off the view beyond the stretch of forest to the northward.

"Well then, gentlemen, as I have a great deal to do on board, I suppose
I may leave you?"

"Unless you'd like to stop and help skin Lane's snakes?"

"Not I," said the mate merrily. "There, don't get into any more
trouble, please."

"We'll try not," said Panton; and after the men had neatly coiled up the
lines, they went back with the mate, all but Billy Wrig