ch Dick had been
dragged. And it was quite upon the cards that, but for Earle's prompt
action, the young Englishman might have been enveloped by those writhing
coils, and every bone in his body broken. As it was, no great harm was
done; and as soon as Earle saw that his friend was safe, and that in its
struggles the python was moving steadily away from the spot, he sprang
in, and whipping out his big hunting knife, quickly drew it across the
dying deer's throat, thus terminating its sufferings.

"Poor brute!" he murmured, regarding the mangled body of the dead deer;
"if I had but made up my mind and pressed the trigger a few seconds
earlier, you would have been spared a good deal of terror and suffering.
As it is--well, let us get back to the raft, Dick, and send a couple of
men to bring in the deer. Its tongue and hind-quarters are untouched,
and will afford all hands a meal of fresh meat, if we can secure it
before the vultures come along. But we shall have to hurry, for unless
I am mistaken, there is the vanguard of their army already." And he
pointed upwards towards a few small dark dots in the sky that had
suddenly and mysteriously appeared.

They hastened back to the raft and hurriedly explained to Inaguy, the
Indian headman, what had happened, and what Earle wanted done; and a few
minutes later two of the blacks sprang into the canoe and paddled away
to the shore, to return an hour later, with the head, hind-quarters, and
skin of the deer, but with the declaration that they had been wholly
unable to find the body of the python.

By this time a little breeze had sprung up from a quarter which would
just enable the raft to lay her course up the reach of the river in
which it then was, and the sails were accordingly set and the craft got
under way. But the wind was so scant that the raft was able to do
little more than hold her own against the current; and when they
anchored that night, they estimated that they had covered little more
than eight miles of ground.

For an entire week the journey up the stream progressed in pretty much
the same deliberate fashion, at the end of which time they were detained
for a whole day by a furious outburst of wind, rain, thunder and
lightning, in the course of which the raft broke adrift, and, but for
Dick's skilful handling of the situation, would probably have been lost,
with all the party's belongings, and, quite possibly, a few lives as
well. As it was, they were dr