There was no need for Dick to ask himself, or his friend, what was the nature of this monstrous, indistinctly seen shape that upreared itself out of the canoe and poised its head within a foot of his face, its two eyes flashing baleful green fires into his as its long forked tongue flickered angrily in and out of its slightly opened jaws; he knew it at once for one of the enormous boas that dispute the sovereignty of the South American forest with the puma, and the black jaguar, that most rare and ferocious of all the cat tribe. And, for an instant, so great was his astonishment at thus unexpectedly finding himself at close quarters--nay, face to face--with a creature big enough to envelop his body half a dozen times over, and strong enough to crush him into a shapeless mass, that he was completely paralysed. He had no fear of the serpent, although he was perfectly aware of the awful danger in which he stood--he knew that in another instant the enormous body might fling its great coils about him and gradually bring into action the tremendous pressure which should crush every bone in his body to splinters--but, on the other hand, it never occurred to him to make the slightest effort to save himself from so hideous a fate. But as he stood there perfectly quiescent for, as it seemed to him, a quarter of an hour or more--the actual length of time did not probably exceed three seconds--a sharp rattling of the dry twigs over his head and a heavy thud met his ears, a little shower of twigs and leaves rained down upon him, and at the same instant a terrific upheaval occurred in the canoe, coil upon coil the vast length of the serpent's body leaped into view, and plunged over the side, there was a violent rustling and crackling of branches for a few seconds as the monster snake writhed its irresistible way through the neighbouring bushes; and then it was gone. And as the last sounds of its hurried retreat died away, Dick Chichester sank helplessly to the ground, violently sick. For a minute or two the paroxysms of vomiting were simply dreadful, and then the feeling of horrible nausea gradually passed away, and, pulling himself together, Dick struggled to his feet. "That's right, lad," he heard Stukely's voice say, as he felt his friend's encouraging pat on the shoulder. "Feel better, now? That's capital. Faugh! what a disgusting stench! No wonder it made you sick; I feel almost as bad myself. But I'll bet a trifle that the brute feels a good deal worse than either of us, for I must have hit him pretty hard; indeed if it had not been for the thick growth that baulked me and hindered my stroke I could have cut his head clean off." "Well, you--you--have--saved my life, Phil, and I--" gasped Dick thickly, as he felt for the other's hand and pressed it convulsively.