THE STRICKEN PYTHON. 181 



proper tools to work with. Our perseverance was rewarded 

 by finding that we had luckily hit off the right direction from 

 the ravine, and we had soon succeeded in boring a hole large 

 enough to be able to stir up the creature with a long stick. 

 The snake, finding itself assailed both in front and rear, and 

 that its stronghold was becoming too hot for it, now began to 

 show symptoms of an inclination to quit it. I therefore, 

 with one of the Goorkhas, took up a position that commanded 

 the front door of the den, leaving the other two to watch the 

 back. 



The business was now becoming decidedly exciting. My 

 jolly little companions were getting quite wild with delight, 

 and were carrying on a hurried altercation, in their own 

 peculiar dialect, as to which way the creature intended 

 making its exit. 



" He's coming out on this side," shouts one of them from 

 the ravine. " He's not going out on your side, for here's his 

 head coming our way," argues the lad beside me. " Why ! 

 we can see his head here," comes the reply from the others, 

 half frantic with excitement. " Then there must be two of 

 them," exclaimed my fellow, jumping up in a transport of 

 glee at the idea. 



Such, indeed, proved to be the case. There was undoubtedly 

 a second monster in the den, and almost as large a one as the 

 first. As the snake on our side now thrust out its head 

 several feet, and was swaying it to and fro as if it meditated 

 bolting (not my carcass, by any means, but its own) from its 

 lair, I retreated a few paces and planted a charge of buck- 

 shot in it, about two feet behind the head. This at once 

 doubled it up, literally, without much damaging its coat 



The scrimmage in the den, a portion of the interior of which 

 we could now see tolerably plainly, was tremendous, as the 

 huge coils of the stricken python, in its death-struggles, 

 became entangled, as it were, with those of its living com- 

 panion. The latter, however, showed a decided disinclination 



