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benefit of persons who don’t like the idea of eating snake, the meat is sold in the market as ‘eel’. The Pilgrims who came over in the Mayflower ate snake when they ran out of other food. The pioneers who went West in covered wagons ate rattlers when they were short of other provisions. Rattlesnake meat is still canned in Florida. Here in Africa where there are so many snakes the people would be foolish if they didn’t eat them. It’s not savage. It’s just common sense.’
    For dessert the grilled baby snakes were served. The men popped the small snakes into their mouths and chewed up the soft bones and delicate flesh with much pleasure.
    This was just a little bit more than Roger could take. He announced that he was not hungry any more. Even Hal would gladly have skipped this dessert. But his men were watching him. With a smile on the outside and a sickish feeling inside he downed one of the little wrigglers.
    Back in the cabin Hal went to an old rolltop desk and began fishing through some papers, yellow with age.
    ‘I saw something here about pythons - ah - this is it. It’s a clipping from a missionary magazine, Glad Tidings, published fifty years ago. It gives some curious advice on what to do if you are attacked by a python.’ He read the clipping:
     
    ‘Remember not to run away - the python can move faster. The thing to do is to lie flat on the ground on your back with your feet together, arms to the sides and head well down. The python will then try to push its head under you, experimenting at every possible point. Keep calm. One wriggle and he will get under you, wrap his coils around you, and crush you.
    ‘After a time the snake will get tired of this and will probably decide to swallow you without squeezing you first. He will very likely begin with one of your feet. Keep calm. You must let him swallow your foot; it is quite painless and will take a long time.
    ‘If you lose your head and struggle, he will quickly whip his coils around you. If you keep calm, he will go on swallowing. Wait patiently until he has swallowed about up to your knee. Then carefully take out your knife and insert it into the distended side of his mouth, and with a quick rip, slit him up.’
     
    Roger grinned. ‘I don’t think I could be that patient - to keep calm and let him swallow me up to the knee before I slit him up. I’d slit him up before he got that far.’
    ‘Right,’ Hal agreed. ‘Only in our case we can’t slit him up - nor shoot him.’ He took out Tieg’s gun. put it into a drawer of the desk, locked the drawer, and put the key in his pocket. ‘The next python we meet we’ve got to take alive.’

Chapter 8
Roger’s luck
    Roger was blue. They had failed twice. ‘Wonder what boner we’ll pull next,’ he said bitterly.
    Hal gave him no comfort. He too was disappointed.
    ‘Well, at least,’ he said, ‘we’ve had three grand successes.’
    ‘Oh, is that so? Tell me what they are.’
    ‘We’ve succeeded in making three deadly enemies in two days. That takes real talent.’
    ‘What enemies?’
    ‘Gog is one. Tieg is the other.’
    ‘That’s two. What’s the third?’
    ‘The mate of the python Tieg killed. We haven’t heard from it yet. But we probably will.’
    ‘Do you think a python really cares about its mate?’
    ‘Certainly. Especially if they’ve been raising a family. A python can become savage if anyone interferes with its young. It has a built-in instinct to coil around its eggs and protect them until they hatch,’
    ‘Then why wasn’t there any snake coiled around the eggs when the men opened the nest?’
    ‘Probably out foraging for food. Even a python must eat. But when it comes back and finds that its eggs have been stolen, look out It will attack anything or anybody within reach.’ He thought a moment. ‘That’s our chance to catch it. I’ll post a man near the nest with a police whistle. If he sees the snake he can whistle us down to help him take it.’
    Roger