The next moment the precise thing of which he had spoken happened. His foot encountered something bulky and firm that yielded and moved at the contact, and before the unfortunate man could utter a cry of warning there occurred a sudden and violent rustling and switching of the long grass in front of him, something struck him a violent blow on the shoulder, and in an instant he found himself enveloped in the coils of an enormous python, the great head of which towered threateningly above him, as it opened wide its gaping jaws within a foot of his face and emitted a loud, sibilant, angry hiss. Its hot, foetid breath struck him full in the face and, in conjunction with the overpowering musky smell of its body, affected him with a deadly nausea that, of itself, was quite sufficient to rob him of all power of resistance, apart from the fact that his arms were bound to his body so tightly by one of the immense convolutions of the serpent's body--which it seemed to him was nearly as thick as his own--that it was impossible to move them by even so little as a single inch. And those deadly coils were tightening round him, too; he could feel the pressure increasing more rapidly than he could draw the breath into his already painfully labouring lungs; and he vainly strove to utter a cry to his companion for help. His elbows were being forced into his ribs with such irresistible pressure that he momentarily expected to feel and hear the bones crack beneath it, while the compression of his chest was rapidly producing a feeling of suffocation, when, above the loud singing in his ears, he caught the faint click of Mildmay's weapon. Then the great threatening head suddenly drooped, the constricting coils relaxed their pressure and opened out, allowing the professor to struggle free of their encircling folds, the huge body writhed convulsively, the great tail threshing down the grass during the space of a full minute or more; then the writhings gradually subsided, and finally the great reptile lay stretched almost at full length before them, dead, with a bullet from Mildmay's rifle through its brain. "Thanks!" gasped the professor, as he wrung Mildmay's hand, "that was a narrow escape for me, my friend, and I am indebted to you for my life. I could do nothing for myself, and even your companionship would have been of but little avail had you not acted so promptly. Another fifteen seconds in those great coils would have finished me off altogether. I thank you, Captain, and if ever the opportunity should occur I will do the same for you." "Of course you will, old chap, I know that," answered Mildmay, heartily; "and likely enough the opportunity may occur ere long. One never knows. What a monster! Why, he must measure at least five and thirty feet, if an inch. He is the biggest I have ever seen. Now, how do you feel? Would you rather go back to the ship, or shall we go on?"