Then, as the crocodile jumped once more, he threw up his
rifle and shot it under the left foreleg, where the
protective plates are absent.
The brute jumped, and writhed, and swam away amid cascades of golden spray, and as the bullet was soft-nosed and expanding there would probably be, before many more hours were over, one less pest in Africa. But Carter did not worry his head about that. He paddled the dugout to the tree and called to the King.
His Majesty of Okky was fat, and though once he had been a giant in strength, in these latter years of kingship he had grown soft and flabby. He did all his journeyings in hammock and canoe, and had slaves who saved him the smallest scrap of exercise; and, moreover, he ate and drank to vast excess. So that when the immediate strain was over it can be understood how he hung in the upper branches of that tree too limp and exhausted even to lower himself into the canoe. Carter had to climb onto the branch, and bear a hand before he could get down.
The dugout sank perilously beneath his weight, but the King was no amateur, and balanced cannily. Moreover, presently he panted himself into articulate speech. "I fit for gin," said the King of Okky.
"I bet you are," Carter agreed. "But unfortunately the bar on this packet's closed for want of supplies just at the moment. Try a sup of the local ditch-water out of the baler."
The King did so, and made a face. "I have not drunk water since I became a King," said he. "O Carter, do not turn up stream. I have men at a village down yonder."
"I don't doubt it. But having saved your skin, King, I've my own to think of now."
The King's great body began to shake with laughter.