on with voice and gesture. Not one
had been harmed, but it was a narrow escape. Jack set up a shout, but
apparently, in the excitement of racing for the floating stern part of
the _Oriana_, he was unnoticed. However, this did not alarm him, for he
was sure of being able to attract attention before long.

A sudden lurch of the hatchway on which he was drifting, and the sound
of a slithering motion as of some heavy body being dragged along some
rough surface, made him turn his head.

What he saw made him almost lose his grip on the hatchway.

[Illustration: What he saw made him almost lose his grip on the
hatchway.]

The hideous flat head and wicked eyes of a huge python faced him. The
great snake, escaping somehow from the catastrophe to the menagerie
ship, had swum for the same refuge Jack had chosen. Now it was dragging
its brilliantly mottled body, as thick as a man's thigh, up upon the
hatchway. The floating "raft" dipped under the great snake's weight,
while Jack, literally petrified with horror, watched without motion or
outcry.

But apparently the snake was too badly stunned by the explosion to be
inclined for mischief. It coiled its great body compactly in gay-colored
folds on the hatch and lay still. But Jack noticed that its mottled eyes
never left his figure.

"Gracious, I can't stand this much longer," thought Jack.

He looked about him for another bit of wreckage to which he might swim
and be free of his unpleasant neighbor. But the debris had all drifted
far apart by this time and his limbs felt too stiffened by his
involuntary dive to the depths of the ocean for him to attempt a long
swim.

Not far off he could see the boats busily transferring the castaways of
the _Oriana_ on board. Supposing they pulled away from the scene without
seeing him? Undoubtedly, they deemed him lost and would not make a
search for him. Warmly as the sun beat down, Jack felt a chill that
turned his blood to ice-water run over him at the thought. Left to drift
on the broad Atlantic with a serpent for a companion and without a
weapon with which to defend himself. The thought was maddening and he
resolutely put it from him.

So far the great snake had lain somnolently, but now, as the sun began
to warm its body, Jack saw the brilliantly colored folds begin to writhe
and move. It suddenly appeared to become aware of him and raised its
flat, spade-shaped head above its coils.

Its tongue darted in and out of its red mou