“Oh, just as near as you like. Mind that hole; I shouldn’t wonder if another one lived there.”
I stepped quickly aside from the ugly-looking spot, and felt so vexed on seeing my companion smile, that I turned back and stood looking down into the place, forcing myself to do so quietly, and then following in a deliberate way, though all the time I could not help feeling a kind of shuddering sensation run over me, as if I had suddenly stepped out of the hot woodland into a current of fresh cool air.
I glanced at Morgan as I overtook him, but he did not say anything, only trudged on till, suddenly laying his hand upon my arm, he pointed to a tree dimly-seen through the overhung shades.
“That’s the one I tied the line to,” he said; “now I shouldn’t wonder if we find he has scratched himself a hole in the soft earth. It’s nearly half water, and I dare say he could easy.”
“And if he has, what then?”
“Why, we must pull him back by the rope. He won’t make much of a struggle; it will be too tight round his neck, and choke him so. There, what did I tell you!”
He pointed to where the rope ran down from the tree apparently into the ground.
“But if he had scratched a hole,” I said, “he would have made a heap.”
“Oh no; it’s all so soft as soon as you get through the roots. He’d worm himself down right out of sight in no time, and— Well, I am took aback.”
Morgan had stooped down and picked up the noose. The alligator had gone.