Meantime, the captured snake had been thrown overboard, as no one cared to preserve it, and the men did not wish to keep it on deck. "These reptiles come to life sometimes after they're killed," said one of the old mariners, "and before you know it they lay hold of your foot if it is the first thing handy." The Doctor and the youths walked aft, and seated themselves under the awning, where they could look at the receding shores of the islands. A few moments after they were seated, Frank asked the Doctor if he had ever seen a real sea-serpent. The Doctor smiled, as he answered in the negative. "But is there such a thing as a sea-serpent?" Frank persisted. "That is a direct question," the Doctor responded, "but I am not able to answer it directly. Before I say yes or no I must make an explanation, or rather I will tell you what is known on the subject, and then you may make the answer for yourselves. "It is the fashion of the time," he continued, "to laugh at any one who thinks he has seen what may be a sea-serpent. On several occasions reputable ship-captains have come forward with their officers and crew to make oath to what they had witnessed, and their chief reward has been to be ridiculed by the newspapers generally: they have been treated as deliberate liars, or it is hinted that they were intoxicated at the time they supposed they were looking at a sea-serpent. The result has been to make mariners reluctant to give any kind of testimony concerning the possible existence of a sea-serpent, through fear of being treated as impostors. "About a year ago, while one of the steamers of the Peninsula and Oriental Company was making its voyage from Bombay to Aden, two or three passengers, who were on deck early in the morning, saw what exactly resembled a snake, sixty or eighty feet long, thrashing the water about half a mile from the ship. They called the attention of the captain to it, and then that of the officer on watch; the captain turned for a few seconds in the direction indicated, and then looked away, and, as he did so, he instructed the officer of the watch to keep his eyes straight ahead. The passengers afterward drew up a statement of what they had seen, and asked the captain to sign it; he refused to do so, and furthermore ordered his officers and men to make no mention of the affair in any way whatever. He gave as an excuse for his action that, no matter how seriously and carefully he made his statement, he would be ridiculed for it, and his veracity and sobriety questioned, and he did not care to be thus treated. 'If a snake should come on board,' said he, 'and eat up half the crew and passengers, I wouldn't say it was a snake, unless I could take him along to prove it, and perhaps then I wouldn't.' "The sea-serpent described in ancient histories is undoubtedly fictitious, and so is the one referred to in the nautical song, somewhat like this,