ich was fixed in the huge purple sides of a hippopotamus,
who foamed and wallowed a few yards down the stream. An old grizzled
warrior at the stern, with a rudder in either hand, kept the boat's
head continually towards the monster, in spite of its sudden and frantic
wheelings; and when it dashed madly across the stream, some twenty oars
flashed through the water in pursuit. All was activity and excitement;
and it was no wonder if Philammon's curiosity had tempted him to drift
down almost abreast of the barge ere he descried, peeping from under a
decorated awning in the afterpart, some dozen pairs of languishing
black eyes, turned alternately to the game and to himself. The
serpents!--chattering and smiling, with pretty little shrieks and
shaking of glossy curls and gold necklaces, and fluttering of muslin
dresses, within a dozen yards of him! Blushing scarlet, he knew not
why, he seized his paddle, and tried to back out of the snare.... but
somehow, his very efforts to escape those sparkling eyes diverted his
attention from everything else: the hippopotamus had caught sight of
him, and furious with pain, rushed straight at the unoffending canoe;
the harpoon line became entangled round his body, and in a moment he
and his frail bark were overturned, and the monster, with his huge white
tusks gaping wide, close on him as he struggled in the stream.

Luckily Philammon, contrary to the wont of monks, was a bather, and swam
like a water-fowl: fear he had never known: death from childhood had
been to him, as to the other inmates of the Laura, a contemplation too
perpetual to have any paralysing terror in it, even then, when life
seemed just about to open on him anew. But the monk was a man, and a
young one, and had no intention of dying tamely or unavenged. In an
instant he had freed himself from the line; drawn the short knife which
was his only weapon; and diving suddenly, avoided the monster's rush,
and attacked him from behind with stabs, which, though not deep, still
dyed the waters with gore at every stroke. The barbarians shouted with
delight. The hippopotamus turned furiously against his new assailant,
crushing, alas! the empty canoe to fragments with a single snap of his
enormous jaws; but the turn was fatal to him; the barge was close upon
him, and as he presented his broad side to the blow, the sinewy arm of
the giant drove a harpoon through his heart, and with one convulsive
shudder the huge blue mass turned over