I was very sorry to have to do this; but I had to be at office at 10 a.m., and if this had not been done before I went, I would have found my house desolate on my return, and no dinner ready. My servants would have fled unanimously. So the poor little crocodiles had to die. But it was humanely done, and the unhatched eggs were broken before being buried, and the earth rammed tight.
“Stand and see the man does it,” I said to the “boy” or factotum.
“You may be sure it’ll be done,” said he, and added, with unusual cheerfulness, “we’ll all be helping him.”
Though the lucky fisherman had been told to say as little as possible, he had boasted so much of his good fortune that a plain-spoken vernacular proclamation had to be sent in all directions to this effect—
NOTICE
NESTS OF CROCODILES’ EGGS
The Deputy Commissioner Does not Want any More
[102] ]There was a curious sequel a month or two later. Somewhere about the south of Ramri Island, there lived a secluded farmer of strong intellect, who asked himself, “Why did the Deputy Commissioner want to hatch crocodiles’ eggs?” His neighbours were asking themselves the same question, and to an interested gathering at a Buddhist temple he explained his solution of the conundrum.
“Why do we hatch the eggs of fowls? Because we want fowls. Therefore it must have been because he wanted crocodiles that the Deputy Commissioner bought and hatched the crocodile’s eggs.
“He probably did not know, as we do, that the new-born crocodiles are untameable, like fishes. They need a great deal of time to grow big. But a full-grown crocodile is a very sagacious as well as a very hungry animal, and it would quickly become devoted to anybody who fed it as well as he could afford to feed it. So, if he paid so much for the eggs, he would give thousands of rupees for a really big and mature crocodile, especially if it were nicely tamed.”
The wisdom of this reasoning was much admired. So the wise fellow and his friends sought the acquaintance of the dwellers in the creeks, and [103] ]decoyed into a little tank a patriarchal crocodile. Some weeks were spent in “taming” it (and dosing it with opium, as was afterwards suspected). Then half a dozen men, no longer young, shouldered the pole to which the crocodile was tied, and carried it, more than a day’s journey, to the district headquarters.
They came to the house of the Deputy Commissioner about the middle of the second day after leaving home, and were told he was at office. They went to seek him.