Suddenly there was a splash, a smothered cry, and a loud burst of shrill laughter. The sooty imps were dancing and capering with glee, gazing at and chaffing one of their number who had fallen from the bank—high and perpendicular there—into the water among the reeds. But almost as suddenly the cachinations turned to a sharp yell of terror and warning. The reeds swayed in a quivering line of undulation, as though something were moving through them—something swift and mighty and terrible—and so it was. The black boy, who could swim like a fish, had thrown himself clear of the reeds, deeming his chances better in the open water, but after him, its long grisly snout and cruel beady eyes flush with the surface, glided a large crocodile.
Half instinctively the unseen spectator put up his piece, then dropped it again. He might shoot the reptile, but what then? All their plans would be upset—the villages would be alarmed, and his own life greatly jeopardized. Too steep a price by far to pay, to save one wretched little black imp from being devoured by a crocodile, he told himself. The road to wealth did not lie that way; and the cruel sneer that drooped his lips as he lowered his weapon was not good to behold, as he stood up to witness the end of this impromptu hunt, whose quarry was human.
The boys on the bank were shouting and screaming, partly for help, partly in the hope of scaring the hideous saurian. That wily reptile, however, heeded them not one atom. His great jaws opened and closed with a snap—but not on the crunch of human flesh, not on the crackle of human bones. The wretched little native, with incredible dexterity, had swerved and dived, just eluding the hungry jaws by no more than a hair's breadth. But to what avail?
For the smooth surface of the lagoon was now rippling into long furrow-like waves. Dark objects were gliding through the water with noiseless rapidity, converging on the point where the human quarry had now risen to breathe. More of the dreadful reptiles, with which the lagoons were swarming, had found out there was prey, and were bearing down to obtain their share. From his concealment, Laurence could see it all—the glistening of the hideous snouts, the round woolly head and staring, terror-stricken eyeballs of the miserable little victim. Then, with a wild, piercing, soul-curdling shriek, the latter disappeared, and there arose to the surface a boil of foam, bubbling upon the slimy water in a bright red stain. Below, in the depths, the crocodiles were rending asunder their unexpected prey.
"The moral of that episode," said the concealed spectator to himself, as he turned away, "is that little boys should not play too near the bank. No, there is yet another—the incredibly short space of time in which the refined and civilized being can turn into a stony-hearted demon; and the causes which accomplish such transmogrification are twain—the parting with all his illusions, and the parting with all his cash."
These ruminations were cut short in a manner that was violent, not to say alarming. Two spears whizzed past him with a vicious, angry hiss, one burying itself deep in the stem of the tree-fern just behind him, the other flying into empty space, but grazing his ear by very few inches indeed. Then, in the wild, barking, hoarse-throated yell, blood-curdling in its note of hate and fury, Laurence Stanninghame realized that he was in a tight place—a very tight place.