Barney had never seen anything of the sort before, and a cold perspiration broke out upon him, when he fancied it might be a ghost.

Again the bat swept past close to his eyes.
"Musha, but I'll kill ye, ghost or no ghost," he ejaculated, gazing all round into the gloomy depths of the woods with his cutlass uplifted.
Instead of flying again in front of him, as he had expected, the bat flew with a whirring noise past his ear.

Down came the cutlass with a sudden thwack, cutting deep into the trunk of a small tree, which trembled under the shock and sent a shower of ripe nuts of a large size down upon the sailor's head.

Startled as he was, he sprang backward with a wild cry; then, half ashamed of his groundless fears, he collected the wood he had cut, threw it hastily on his shoulder and went with a quick step out of the woods.

In doing so he put his foot upon the head of a small snake, which wriggled up round his ankle and leg.