The boys cheered, and after reloading in the slow, old-fashioned way of fifty years ago, went close up to the reptile.
"Shall I give him another shot in the head, Mr. Kenyon?" cried Phra.
"No, no, my lad; it would be only waste of powder and shot. The brute is beyond the reach of pain now. Well, Hal, how long do you make it?" he cried, as that young gentleman finished pacing the ground close up to the great reptile.
"Five of my steps," said Harry; "and he's as thick round as I can span—a little thicker. I say, isn't he beautifully marked, father?"
"Splendidly, my boy."
"But who'd have thought a thing like that could be so strong?"
"They are wonderfully powerful," said Mr. Kenyon. "It is a splendid specimen, Sree," he continued to that personage, who, with his companions—all three looking sullen and out of heart—was rearranging dragged-off or discarded loin-cloths, and looking dirty, torn, and in one or two places bleeding, from the reptile's teeth.
"Yes, Sahib," said the man sadly; "he would have been a prize, and I should have been proud, and the Sahib would have been grateful in the way he always is to his servants."
"Oh, I see," said Harry, who whispered to his father and then to Phra, both nodding.
"I could not have kept such a monster as that alive, Sree," said the merchant; "but you men behaved splendidly. You were brave to a degree, and of course I shall pay you as much or more than I should have given you if it had been prisoned alive."