And now, the breeze freshening and the dahabeeyah tearing gallantly along, we leave the tumuli behind, and enter upon a more desolate region, where the mountains recede farther than ever and the course of the river is interrupted by perpetual sand-banks.
On one of these sand-banks, just a few yards above the edge of the water, lay a log of drift-wood, apparently a battered old palm trunk, with some remnants of broken branches yet clinging to it; such an object, in short, as my American friends would very properly call a “snag.”
Our pilot leaned forward on the tiller, put his finger to his lip and whispered:
“Crocodilo!”
The painter, the idle man, the writer, were all on deck, and not one believed him. They had seen too many of these snags already and were not going to let themselves again be excited about nothing.
The pilot pointed to the cabin where L—— and the little lady were indulging in that minor vice called afternoon tea.
“Sittèh!” said he, “call sittèh! Crocodilo!”
We examined the object through our glasses. We laughed the pilot to scorn. It was the worst imitation of a crocodile that we had yet seen.
All at once the palm-trunk lifted up its head, cocked its tail, found its legs, set off running, wriggling, undulating down the slope with incredible rapidity and was gone before we could utter an exclamation.
We three had a bad time when the other two came up and found that we had seen our first crocodile without them.