Hal and the men stood back. They might as well have tried to stop a tornado. The iguana, looking like a monster of the days before the dawn of civilization, the spines on its back and chin standing out like the hackles of an angry rooster, gripped the snake with its long, sharp claws and held on with its alligator-like teeth. The teeth of the boa had now been transferred from the tapir to her new enemy. But Nosey was so entangled in the
coils that he revolved with them, screaming with terror.
Hal looked on in dismay. The two demons would kill each other. The ugly iguana and the lovely boa were both valuable. It was the battle of beauty and the beast. He must not let either win at the expense of the other. But what to do? He had caught snakes before, but never a boa constrictor. What could one do with noosing cord in a melee like this?
Another idea came to him and he dropped the cord. He noticed that every time the iguana came out to the full length of the leash that tied him to a log of the craft, the whirling dervishes came to a momentary halt. If he could be there just at that instant and get his fingers on a certain nerve in the snake’s neck … Every snake had such a nerve centre, and it was its tenderest spot, its Achilles’ heel.
The next time the line snapped taut Hal’s hand flew to the boa’s throat, the fingers sinking deeply into the undersurface. He was pulled violently about by the thrashing reptile, but he held on. The Indians were dancing about him, trying to seize some other part of the boa’s whirling body.
Then Hal saw that the boa’s jaws had relaxed their hold on the iguana. He felt a surge of triumph. He was Tarzan after all.
The feeling changed to one of horror as the boa transferred her full attention to him. Her coils whipped around his body. Roger seized the end of the tail and manfully tried to pull it loose.
‘Stand clear!’ yelled Hal. One Hunt in trouble was enough. But Roger stuck to his apparently hopeless job.
Hal ground the fingers of both hands into the throat at the back of the snake’s head. The open jaws with their gleaming teeth reached back towards his hands. A grip just behind a snake’s head is supposed to be safe, but some snakes can almost turn in their skins to get at their captor. Hal was thankful that the boa has no poison, but he was aware that its bite can be painful and sometimes fatal.
‘Me kill! Me kill!’ screeched Banco, brandishing his knife. But Hal shook his head. He felt he had already won two points, for the iguana and tapir had retreated to safety.
The snake in its violent convulsions got close enough to catch her teeth upon his shirt and tore it from his shoulder. Blood trickled from a scratch.
More serious was the tightening of the coils. He was beginning to lose his breath. With all his strength he tightened his own grip. Then there was a shout of joy from Roger. He was beginning to have some success. The tail came free but whipped about so savagely that Roger, still hanging on to it, danced a fandango. He kept pulling and walked around Hal, unwinding the serpent. The Indians laid hold and helped him. The jaws and the head drooped. Hal relaxed his grip, hoping fervently that he had not gone too far and killed this superb representative of the world of snakes.
The boa went limp and six men had no difficulty in holding her, stretching out her lustrous brown
body to full length. The men stood there in a sort of daze.
‘Now we’ve got her, what do we do with her?’ came from Roger.
Hal felt bruised and weak. It was as if the wits had been squeezed out of him. Yes, what would they do with the boa now that they had her?
One of the Indians came up with the answer. He pointed to the cabin, or toldo, on the montaria. Sure enough, thought Hal, the Indians were quite accustomed to making a pet of the boa constrictor. In the Indian villages it was common practice to have a boa in the house to keep the place free of rats and mice. This snake had been fighting for its life and had shown its savage nature. But if it were kindly treated it would become tame and even affectionate.
‘Just the place for it,’ said Hal.
Together they carried the weakly squirming boa off the Ark and on to the skiff. They put her into the toldo and closed the door. There she would be apart from the other animals. Perhaps later she would learn to get along with them. If she were kept well-supplied with food, she would have no incentive to gobble up the other passengers. Her first meal was a young peccary brought in by one of the crew. The pig squealed loudly as it was tossed into the toldo. A moment later it still squealed but with a muffled tone, for the squeal was halfway down the boa’s throat.
The men opened the door to watch the proceeding. The boa was too fully occupied to pay attention to them. Her head seemed twice as big as before and her throat bulged.
‘How can she make her head so large?’ puzzled Roger.
That’s because her jaws are not locked together at the back like ours,’ said Hal. ‘They’re only attached to her skull by a sort of elastic. She can pull her lower jaw away from her upper far enough to take in something a lot bigger than the usual size of her own head. But that’s not the most wonderful thing about her. Watch her ‘jaw-walking’!’
The boa was inching the peccary in by a curious movement of her lower jaw — or jaws, for there were actually two of them. They worked separately. The right jaw would grip and pull, and the left one would then do the same, the one on the right would release its grip and move forward to grip again, and so on. Thus the victim was ‘walked’ into the mouth and down the throat.
‘I see where my job is cut out for me,’ said Roger ruefully, ‘getting food everyday for that big girl.’ ‘I don’t think she’ll be much trouble,’ Hal assured him. ‘That meal will last her a week — perhaps two. She’ll just lie in a corner and sleep it off. I don’t think we even need to keep the door closed. She won’t think about escaping until she gets hungry again — and by that time we’ll have some more food ready for her.’
Roger admired his brother’s book knowledge. And it was all to work out exactly as he said except for one unexpected development — something that would provide the expedition with sixty boa constrictors instead of one!
All the rest of day the boa lay asleep in the corner of the toldo. It was possible now to examine her freely. The head could be picked up, the jaws opened, and she could even be turned over on her side.
‘Look!’ exclaimed Roger. ‘Feet! She has feet.’
Sure enough, just where legs would naturally be if it was natural for a snake to have legs, there were two claws.
‘It just shows,’ Hal said, ‘that somewhere away back in the ancient history of the boas, they had feet like lizards and other vertebrates. These are the remains of them.’
‘Why did they lose them, I wonder?’
‘Because they became clever enough to walk on their stomachs,’ Hal guessed. ‘Think what an advantage it is in the jungle not to have arms and legs to get tangled in the underbrush. A snake can slip through a tangle of vines that would stop anything with legs.’
‘But none of the snakes we used to catch had these leftover legs.’
‘No — but I understand all the boa family has them.’
What’s the boa family?’
‘Oh, there are about forty kinds of boa. The python is one. You’d have to go to Asia to find it. But the biggest of them all, in fact the largest snake in the whole world, you are likely to run into any day here in the Amazon.’
‘The anaconda?’
Hal nodded. Roger’s eyes sparkled. ‘Are we going to try to get one of them?’
‘Yes. But we won’t have as easy a time as we had today. Our boa is as gentle as a kitten compared with the anaconda.’
‘Gentle!’ exclaimed Roger, looking at the twelve feet of powerful muscle. ‘There was a while this afternoon when I thought the kitten was going to swallow a mouse, and you were it.’
That night the miracle happened, and one snake became sixty, or perhaps even seventy, no one ever knew exactly how many because it was impossible to tell just how many the big stork swallowed when
no one was looking.
The flotilla was sliding down river under a moon even more forlorn than the one the night before. Suddenly, above the bedlam raised by the howler monkeys, frogs and big cats of the forest, came a whoop from Roger. He was in the skiff with two of the Indians. He clutched at his knee where something was squirming up inside his trousers. Then something dropped from a halyard on to his shoulder and wriggled around his neck.
The two Indians stopped rowing and started yelling. They danced about as if shaking things from their bare feet. Then they scrambled up on to the bow and stood perched there on all fours, chattering like monkeys and looking down with dread into the hold of the boat.
Roger shinned up the mast and looked down. Were his eyes deceived by the weird moonlight, or was the whole inside of the boat crawling?
‘What’s the matter?’ It was Hal’s voice. The Ark had pulled alongside and the gunwales of the two boats rubbed. Instantly there could be seen something like little waves or ripples running over the gunwales from the smaller boat to the larger. Then the crew of the Ark joined in the dance. ‘Snakes!’ yelled Hal. ‘Are you all right, Roger?’ ‘They’re all over me.’ ‘Have you been bitten?’
‘No. They don’t seem to bite. But how those little beggars can climb!’
And he slid back to the deck, for he had found that snakes could go up a mast as readily as he. Hal turned on his flashlight. Snakes everywhere! They were little fellows about a foot long and as thick as a pencil. Hal took one up and pressed its jaws open. He was thankful that there was no sign of poison fangs.
Then it dawned upon him. The big boa had became a mother.
‘Whoopee!’ he cried. ‘Now we have enough boas to supply all the zoos in the world.’
The other members of the crew were not so happy about it. It was difficult to step anywhere or put a hand to anything without contacting a slithering little form. The youngsters seemed especially fond of pockets. Perhaps they liked the warmth. Hal pulled them out until he was tired and resigned himself to carrying a baby serpent in each pocket. The Indians were reassured by the evidence of the flashlight. They knew that the little boas were quite harmless — in fact the girls in the villages allowed them to twine through their hair.
Roger was already beginning to worry about having to feed the multitude.
‘Perhaps they’ll all swim away,’ he said hopefully.
‘No chance,’ said Hal. ‘If they were anacondas — yes. But boas don’t like the water. They’ll probably stay near their mother.’
The only other individual on board who was as happy about the snakes as Hal was the big stork. Tonight, tethered out on deck, he thrust his great bill like a shaft of lightning in this direction and that, each time engulfing a snake. His long neck wriggled as they went down. When Hal noticed these goings-on, he quickly put a stop to them by tying the stork’s beak shut with a piece of cord.
That’s a job for you,’ he said to Roger, ‘to keep Stilts so full of fish that he won’t want our babies.’
The boats went on their way, raising their sails when a breeze came up shortly after midnight. The jungle was now still. The passage was narrow, between an island and the mainland.
A canoe shot out from the shore into the dim path ahead, and there were shouts in Portuguese. Someone seemed to be calling for help. Hal, though suspicious, could not pass anyone who really needed ‘assistance. He ordered down the sails. The Ark slid up alongside the canoe.
‘Is this the Hunt outfit?’ a voice came from the canoe.
‘Yes,’ said Hal, more suspicious than ever. But what had he to fear from two men in a canoe?
It’s them!’ one of the men shouted. And there was an answering shout from the shore and a clattering of oars being made ready in a boat.
‘Sails!’ called Hal, but before they could be hoisted one of the strangers stood up in the canoe,
grasped the gunwale of the Ark with one hand and levelled a revolver with the other.
‘The first man who moves will get plugged,’ he warned.
The men froze in their places as if struck by a sudden paralysis. Roger had been collecting snakes on the deck of the Ark and putting them into a covered basket. He stood with the basket in his arms by the gunwale just above the canoe.
Judging by the sounds from shore there were quite a number of men boarding a boat considerably larger than the canoe in which the two sentinels had been stationed. It was painful to Hal to have to stand helpless while his enemies prepared to attack, but the levelled revolver was very persuasive. It was pointed straight at him.
Roger made a slight movement. The man standing immediately swung the gun to cover him.
‘Never mind him,’ said his companion. ‘He’s only a kid.’
The muzzle went back to Hal. Roger felt heartily insulted. So he was only a kid! Not even worth covering with a gun!
He took advantage of the fact that he was not closely watched. He quietly uncovered the basket. A large boat could now be seen putting out from shore, well loaded with men. The oarsmen were being urged on by a ragged-edged voice that was certainly Croc’s. Croc’s voice reminded you of a stone wall with broken glass on top.
Roger swung the basket and threw the contents upon the two men in the canoe.
Chapter16
Bullets at Midnight
A bath of snakes slithered down over the heads of the unwelcome visitors. Bang went the revolver, let off by a nervous trigger finger. The bullet panged into a tree on the island. The men roared with rage and terror, thrashing about violently, trying to free themselves of the uncanny little crawlers. Who was to know that they were not deadly?
The man standing let go of the gunwale of the Ark in order to have both hands free for his battle with the serpents. He had no sooner done so than he lost his balance and went overboard, capsizing the canoe.
‘Hey, I can’t swim,’ blubbered one of the men, but Hal did not tarry to rescue him. The sails were
up in a flash and the men bent to the oars. The pursuing boat also ran up a sail.
Hal noticed that the shouted words of the men following were only rarely in Spanish or Portuguese, but mostly in a wharfside English. Croc might have brought the thugs to South America with him or, more likely, he had picked them up in Iquitos. Along the wharves of Iquitos where ocean liners dock after a voyage of 2300 miles up the Amazon from the Atlantic, there were always plenty of rough characters from North America or Europe who were quite willing to engage in crime for a consideration. Along with such a gang of willing murderers, Croc doubtless had one or two Indians or caboclos who knew the river. Perhaps one of them was sheeting home the sail, for it seemed to be making the best use of every puff of air.
But the men at the oars could not be river men. Perhaps they were more accustomed to the deck of a cargo steamer than to the rower’s post in a montaria. There seemed to be a bank of four oars on each side. Of course they had to work in unison to be successful, but they were continually tangling with each other to the accompaniment of curses that echoed back from the forest wall.
Croc had been forced to pause long enough to pick up the two men dumped from the canoe, right the canoe, and attach the painter to the stern of the larger boat.
‘Good boy, Roger!’ said Hal, seeing the fruit of his brother’s endeavours. Every moment gained might mean the difference between success and failure, life and death.
He felt less cheerful when bullets began to come from the pursuing boat. They zinged by in such a savage hurry that Hal knew they must be coming from powerful rifles of a long enough range to reach them even if they were half a mile away instead of a poor 500 feet.
One struck the stern, one crashed through the toldo, and one crumpled a leg of the helmsman’s platform so that it tipped precariously. Banco abandoned the rudder and came tumbling down to safety. The Ark swung off course. ‘Get back to the helm,’ Hal ordered. Banco replied with a torrent of excited gibberings and huddled down in the shelter of the toldo. Hal leaped to the pl
atform, grasped the tiller, and brought the Ark back on her course. But a precious moment had been lost.
Bullets smashed around him. ‘What a fool target I must make!’ he thought. High on the platform, he must be plainly silhouetted against the stars. It could only be a matter of time before he would be hit — unless he could do something to delay Croc’s boat.
‘Roger!’ he called, and Roger came running. ‘Cut the painter of the dugout.’ What for?’
‘Quick! Cut the canoe loose and swing it broadside.’
Roger caught the idea. Lay this heavy, hollowed log across the path of Croc’s boat. The canoe would be lost, but in a good cause.
He drew in the line until he had his hand on the bow of the canoe. Then he cut the line and gave the log boat a strong push backwards and sidewards. Its forward progress checked, it floated with its port beam towards the oncoming boat.
‘That’ll stop them for a minute,’ said Hal jubilantly.
As if in answer a bullet ripped through his trousers barely escaping his hip, and disturbing a boa in his pocket. The snake wriggled, then became quiet again as it snuggled against his warm leg.
The black dugout, he hoped, would blend in with the black of the Ark so that Croc and his men would not be able to see it until it was too late to avoid it.
His guess was nearly correct, but not quite. Croc’s boat was only some ten feet from the floating canoe when it was observed and a hoarsely barked order shifted the course far enough to the right so that the big boat merely grazed the dugout’s stern.
A yell of derision came from the boatload of thugs. The yell drowned out a shouted warning in Portuguese. Someone who knew the channel was trying to make himself heard. With all their might, the men at the oars shot their boat straight on to a sand bar. The keel ground and gritted with a screech, and the sail, still pulling, instantly upset the craft. Some of the occupants rolled out on the bar, some into the water.
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