So Sabey cast off shirt and hat, and, with a warning to his companions to pull him out quickly if he should call, went down on his hands and knees and crawled head-foremost into the hole, pushing his billhook before him. Wriggling like a snake, he dragged himself slowly and cautiously downward, and, about the time he had gone down far enough to leave only his toes sticking out of the mouth of the hole, the sharp point of his staff rattled against the ’gator’s skull as he lay head on toward the entrance. The strong, musky smell of the great saurian would have suffocated one less tough than Sabey, but he paid no attention to it, and prodded with his staff until he had maneuvered the sharp point of his hook under the ’gator’s throat when, with a quick upward jerk, he fastened it in the creature’s lower jaw, and, as a hissing sigh met him in the face, he shouted and kicked his heels at the same time as a signal that he wished to come up. They pulled so lustily that his crooked leg was almost jerked out of its socket, and his head came out, grumbling and scolding, “Oonuh t’ink me duh alligettuh ’long fo’ foot, enty? Wuh me fuh do fuh foot attuh oonuh pull off dem wuh uh got? Oonuh mus’be fool! Oonuh nebbuh pull nigguh outuh alligettuh hole befo’?”
But they were now too excited to quarrel, and, seizing the double plow lines, they began, under Sabey’s direction, to pull slowly on the ’gator. Had Sabey hooked him in a less sensitive part, they could not have budged him. He was too well braced for hanging back, but his throat was comparatively tender, and inch by inch he began to come up, while the negroes shouted and chanted with delight, their excitement increasing as the line shortened and the quarry neared the mouth of the hole, till at last the ugly snout was pushed forward, and then the head, full two feet long, appeared as the fore feet followed, and the ’gator reared up. Frightened, the negroes retreated to the very end of the line. Meanwhile, Sabey had seized his musket and executed a flank movement, and realizing that, as the ’gator’s tail was still underground, there was little danger in a close approach, crept up and, firing when the muzzle of his gun almost touched the ’gator’s side, tore a great hole just behind the shoulder. The negroes shouted with joy, for they realized that the wound was mortal. But ’gators take a long time to die, and they kept pulling, and he kept crawling, until his entire length of nine feet had been drawn out of the hole. Sabey was wary, and insisted on their retaining hold of the staff, which was still hooked in the ’gator’s throat, and he warned his companions of the danger in approaching within reach of the treacherous tail, but after awhile, as the great creature slowly bled to death, several of the younger negroes walked too near, and, while appraising with gastronomic appreciation the great tail, which many of the negroes eat with avidity, it lashed out suddenly. A feeble effort, but with force enough to send the frightened negroes on both sides of him sprawling and rubbing their bruised legs which the ’gator’s sweep, delivered with full force, could have broken like pipe stems.
And now that the Dragon that guarded the treasure had been haled from the dungeon and put hors de combat, Sabey tied a couple of empty sacks, each to a plow line, and essayed a second nose dive into the pit of promise. There is always danger of getting jammed or stuck in exploring a ’gator hole, but Sabey was experienced and cautious, and the hole was large, so down he went, taking the sacks with him, and soon reached the bottom, which had widened into a considerable cavity eighteen feet from the mouth. His exploring hands, feeling in front of him, found a small pool of water literally alive with terrapins. Having ample room to turn around, Sabey lost no time in filling one of his sacks with terrapins, which, at a jerk of the line, was hauled up out of his way. The second sack held all that remained, and, when this had followed the first, he turned, and, facing upward, decided to go head-foremost, preferring to crawl out like a self-respecting caterpillar, under his own steam, rather than be hauled up by the heels like a slaughtered shoat. But, fearing suffocation in the close quarters underground, he had admonished the men above, who managed the rope attached to his foot, to pull him up quickly at the first jerk, and, as he turned upward, his free leg became entangled with the tied one. In kicking loose, he gave the line a jerk, to which his friends responded so suddenly that they hauled his legs up under him, trussing him into the semblance of a bronze statuette of a squatting Buddha. Sabey yelled with pain and anger, for the hole, while large enough for a man to pass extended, was too close for him doubled up, and Sabey was stuck in the barrel. His muffled cries reached his friends, but they thought them calls for more speed, and the harder they pulled, the tighter they jammed the unhappy wretch.
“Eh, eh! Da’ felluh pull hebby!”
“Yaas, man, Buh Sabey pull hebby sukkuh alligettuh.”
It was old Cato who noticed that they had not budged him an inch. “’Top, oonuh man, ’top!” he shouted. “’Ee yent duh moobe. Slack de rope.”
As they stopped pulling, Sabey hauled in the slack, released his legs, and, hauling on the rope hand over hand, was soon at the mouth of the hole, where he lay for several minutes to fill up with fresh air. When, recovered sufficiently to get mad, he rose on all-fours like an alligator, he presented a fearful sight. His yellow wool, his face, and his copper-colored arms and torso were smeared and streaked with black mud, his ragged trousers, water-soaked and muddy, clung to his crooked legs, and he looked like a composite of iguana and ape.
Though ordinarily a taciturn negro, Sabey, under the spur of anger, galloped through his vocabulary of invective at top speed. “Oonuh good fuh nutt’n’ debble’ub’uh no’count nigguh! Oonuh ent wut! Uh tell oonuh ’sponsubble fuh haul de rope w’en uh pull’um ’long me han’, uh nebbuh tell oonuh fuh haul’um w’en uh kick’um ’long me foot! Oonuh ent know de diff’unce ’twix’ man’ han’ en’ ’e foot? Ef man tell oonuh fuh tek uh cucklebuhr outuh mule yez, oonuh gwine saa’ch fuhr’um een ’e tail, enty? Oonuh mus’be tek me fuh annimel!”
“Ef you ent wash off dem mud en’ t’ing ’fo’ you gone home, Bess gwine tek you fuh cootuh, eeduhso fuh ’ranguhtang, en’ him ent gwi’ leh you fuh gone een him house,” they chaffed.
Sabey washed in the muddy pool, resumed his shirt, tied the two sacks of terrapins together, hung them over the gun barrel at his back, and prepared to shake the mud of the Half Moon off his feet. “W’en uh done sell dese yuh yalluh-belly cootuh en’ gone een me house wid alltwo me han’ full’up wid money, Bess gwine lub me tummuch, ef uh yiz look lukkuh ’ranguhtang. Monkey hab fo’ han’, en’ de mo’res’ han’ man hab, de mo’ ’ooman lub’um! Oonuh black Aff’ikin Guinea nigguh! Oonuh kin nyam da’ alligettuh, en’ w’en oonuh yiz nyam’um, oonuh duh cannibel!”