PAGE 5
Noah’s Ark
by
“The rhino caught a hyena on his tusk, tossed him in air, caught him as he fell, sent him flying again, and then stamped his life out. This seemed to settle the fate of the other hyena, for immediately the two remaining wolves got at him. But rhino’s next victim was a wolf, which he disposed of as quickly.
“This left two cowards to fight for the supremacy; but the fight was taken out of them. They slunk apart and did not meet again.
“Now, here was the condition of things when a new factor intruded upon the problem: the lion was nursing his hurts, forward of the house, out of sight; the hippo had gone to sleep from sheer weariness and disgust; the last wolf and hyena were prowling round, avoiding each other; the python and the boa had swallowed two-thirds of each other’s length; the rhino was wandering round, looking for a scrap; the kicking zebras and wild asses had grown tired and called it a draw, and the porcupines, three or four of them, had finished their inspection of their environment and had snuggled down in various places to await developments.
“The new factor was a green sea that lifted aboard amidships and flooded the waist of the ship. Of course, the quick movers of the lot got forward or aft, out of the way of the water surging back and forth across the deck; but the poor porcupines were drowned before the water ran out the scuppers. And when it had gone out, we saw what we had not seen before–the small, poisonous cobras.
“They had come up, but had kept out of sight until that sea washed them round; then, as the water shallowed on the deck, they made for the masts or the rigging and began to climb. It’s hard to drown a snake, you know.
“There were at least two dozen of the reptiles, and it looked bad for us fellows aloft. Did you ever see a snake climb a rope? He goes up in a sort of wriggling spiral, wrapped loosely round it, but shifting his different sections up for a fresh grip. The other fellows climbed to the topmast-crosstrees and looked down; but the snakes stopped at the eyes of the rigging, or the tops, and rested.
“Then came a second new factor in our problem: a sea came aboard from the other side and washed about; another with the next roll, and still another. The rolls were long and heavy, and I, who had once been on a sinking ship, sensed the reason.
“‘We’re sinking, captain,’ I said. ‘That main-topgallantmast going down that hatch has punched a hole or started a butt.’
“‘Maybe you’re right,’ he exclaimed. ‘What can we do?’
“That was too hard a question at the time for a skipper to ask of a foremast-hand, so I said nothing, but did a lot of thinking. The flywheel-pump was amidships at the main fife-rail. We could not go down to it without danger from the wounded lion, the rhino, and possibly the wolf, though, with these out of the way, we might dodge or kill the cobras and fight off the hyena.
“As it was, we were caught. I suggested to the skipper that he go down the mizzentopmast-backstay, dart into his cabin, and get his rifle. Then he could pot the brutes from the forward windows. But he declined and forbade me going. I had no business in his cabin.
“I saw that he had lost his nerve. Now, when a skipper loses his nerve, he loses his rights; so I didn’t hesitate to sing out to the mate in the main-topmast-crosstrees to clear away downhaul-blocks, quarter-blocks, or anything handy and heavy, and try and drop them on the lion and the rhino, the two most dangerous of the bunch. He seemed to be much in the same condition as the skipper, for he answered and passed the word forward to the fellows on the fore.