Nigel, who was nearest to it, sprang forward, fortunately caught its tail, and, swinging it and himself round with such force that it could not coil up at all, dashed it against a tree.  Before it could recover from the shock, Moses had caught up a hatchet and cut its head off with one blow.  The tail wriggled for a few seconds, and the head gaped once or twice, as if in mild surprise at so sudden a finale.

“Zat is strainch—­very strainch,” slowly remarked the professor, as, still seated on the ground, he solemnly noted these facts.

“Not so very strange, after all,” said Van der Kemp; “I’ve seen the head of many a bigger snake cut off at one blow.”

“Mine frond, you mistake me.  It is zee vorking of physical law in zee spiritual vorld zat perplexes me.  Moses has cut zee brute in two—­physical fact, substance can be divided.  Zee two parts are still alife, zerfore, zee life—­zee spirit—­has also been divided!”

“It is indeed very strange,” said Nigel, with a laugh.  “Stranger still that you may cut a worm into several parts, and the life remains in each, but, strangest of all, that you should sit on the ground, professor, instead of rising up, while you philosophise.  You are not hurt, I hope—­are you?”

“I razer zink I am,” returned the philosopher with a faint smile; “mine onkle, I zink, is spraint.”

This was indeed true, and it seemed as if the poor man’s wanderings were to be, for a time at least, brought to an abrupt close.  Fortunately it was found that a pony could be procured at that village, and, as they had entered the borders of the mountainous regions, and the roads were more open and passable than heretofore, it was resolved that the professor should ride until his ankle recovered.

We must now pass over a considerable portion of time and space, and convey the reader, by a forced march, to the crater of an active volcano.  By that time Verkimier’s ankle had recovered and the pony had been dismissed.  The heavy luggage, with the porters, had been left in the low grounds, for the mountain they had scaled was over 10,000 feet above the sea-level.  Only one native from the plain below accompanied them as guide, and three of their porters whose inquiring minds tempted them to make the ascent.

At about 10,000 feet the party reached what the natives called the dempo or edge of the volcano, whence they looked down into the sawah or ancient crater, which was a level space composed of brown soil surrounded by cliffs, and lying like the bottom of a cup 200 feet below them.  It had a sulphurous odour, and was dotted here and there with clumps of heath and rhododendrons.  In the centre of this was a cone which formed the true—­or modern—­crater.  On scrambling up to the lip of the cone and looking down some 300 feet of precipitous rock they beheld what seemed to be a pure white lake set in a central basin of 200 feet in diameter.  The surface of this lakelet smoked, and although it reflected every passing cloud as if it were a mirror, it was in reality a basin of hot mud, the surface of which was about thirty feet below its rim.