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Noah’s Ark
by
“Then, while the two big snakes thrashed around the deck, Mr. Bengal slunk away like a cat scared by a dog–his tail between his legs, and the fur on his back raised up so that it looked like that of a razor-backed hog.
“He went forward of the house to think it over, and the two snakes fought it out, while the lion, thinking that he had won the fight, roared and growled his defiance to the rest.
“He was too confident; the big rhinoceros looked him in the face, and the trouble was resumed.
“Mr. Lion charged; but the rhino lowered his head, caught him between the forepaws with his horn, and sent him flying over his head, with a big gash in his body. That was enough for the lion, king of beasts though he was.
“Leaving a trail of blood, he slunk forward of the house, and there must have met his enemy, the tiger. We could not see, but we could hear, and we knew the fight between the two was resumed.
“The snakes were thrashing it out all this time, but neither seemed to get the better of it. The boa’s instincts were to crush, the python’s to swallow; but this swallowing pertained also to the boa, and it came about that the boa got about three inches of the python’s tail into his mouth, and later the python got a grip on the boa’s tail.
“They held fast and ceased their struggles, their efforts now being centered in the desire to swallow each other. This seemed a good solution of our problem, and we wished them well.
“Meanwhile, the hyenas and the Russian wolves got mixed up, and–talk about your dog fights–you never saw anything like it. Those beasts fought and snarled and wrestled round the deck in a way to make you glad you were up aloft, out of harm’s way.
“It was a strange fight; both the hyenas and the wolves are cowards, each afraid of the other. And it was only when two wolves got at a hyena, or two hyenas got at a wolf that there was any real scrapping. But it came about that these two breeds destroyed each other.
“One after the other crawled away to die from loss of blood.
“The wild asses and zebras had got busy. Something about the arrangement of the zebra’s stripes must have offended the artistic sensibilities of the wild asses, for pretty soon there was a lively kicking-match going on round the deck–a zebra against a donkey, kicking out, stern to stern, like prize-fighters sparring. It was funny, the way they looked round at each other while backing up to a fresh reach.
“Now, the tiger and the lion were having it out forward of the house; the wolves and the hyenas were scrapping, as they could, two against one; the python and the cobra were trying to swallow each other, and the asses and zebras were kicking the ribs out of each other. And, as if this were not enough to complete the circus, the hippo and the rhino must get together.
“Hippo made a plunging charge upon rhino and met that formidable tusk. But the hide of a hippo is something akin to armor-plate, and there was no damage, though the big brute was lifted and turned over. He came back, and in some manner got a grip on that big horn with his teeth; and from that on, their fight was simply a wrestling-match, neither able to hurt the other.
“And over their grunts and groanings, over the noise of the wolves and hyenas, the tiger and lion, and the slatting and bumping of the broken gear against the mast, and the sounds of sea and wind, rose supreme to our ears the blatant squealing and trumpeting of that mad elephant in the ‘tween-decks.
“Added to this were the insane orders to us fellows of the skipper and the two mates. They demanded that we go down and quell the disturbance. Well, we did not go down. We did other things.