CHAPTER XXXVII.
The first impulse of the Ammi, on recovering their safety and their senses, was to kill Fire-tamer who was thought responsible for the disaster. He was supposed to know the habits of the beast, and was deemed negligent in allowing them to be exposed to such a calamity. Pounder especially favored his death, and proposed to inflict it himself, as he had been twice submerged that day, and was specially out of humor.
“I knew,” said Gimbo, “that it would come to this; but you never take the advice of an old man. I don’t walk on four feet for nothing.”
What had become of the beast, was the next question.
“Shall we go after it?” asked one.
Another said: “Let us rather run away from it, and kill Fire-tamer if he brings another.”
“It would be a good thing to have,” said Koree, “now that we are so cold and wet.”
“As soon as it should dry us,” replied Pounder, “it would plunge us again in the water.”