THE SEA-SERPENT. 
99 
v. 
The soldiers still were at their chowder, and 
with them were their wives and mothers ; 
they heard the guns and smelt the powder ; 
but, thinking that their Gloucester brothers a 
grand salute for them were firing, they sat, and 
ate with zeal untiring. It chanced now that 
our wounded snake, hit by a spent ball on the 
head, that, for the moment, seemed to make him 
careless how or where he fled, came like an 
arrow to the spot, uncalled, as comes the bride 
in Zampa, and, rushing right among the lot, pro¬ 
duced a most prodigious scamper. With head 
high raised, and bristling mane, and open jaws 
that spouted foam, and angry eyes that gleamed 
with pain, and tail that lashed his ocean home, 
with rushing bound he left the sea, and plunged 
among the company ! Children, soldiers, maids, 
and men, mothers, sweethearts, all pell-mell, ran 
as they ne’er ran till then ; some, stumbling 
in their hurry, fell ; while some, transfixed 
with silent terror, sat still, — nor ere they 
