Yes, of the most dangerous and numerous description and a superb tiger-python now showed his pointed head from the tip of the elephant’s trunk, and began to unfold his coils, amid spiral volumes of smoke. The other serpents, which were so lucky as to escape with their lives, quickly vanished among the bushes.
But the python could not easily ascend the cast iron cylinder, and Captain Hood had time to get his rifle and send a bullet through its head.
Then Goorni mounted the elephant, and scrambling up the trunk, succeeded, with the help of Kalouth and Storr, in hoisting out the huge reptile. It was a most magnificent boa, in a vesture of gorgeous green and purple, adorned with regular rings, which seemed as though cut out of splendid tiger skin. It was as thick as a man’s arm, and measured
