“Oh, nonsense, old fellow,” cried Bob. “But, I say; what a brute! He must have been twenty feet long.”
“Oh, no,” said Ali, smiling faintly, “not ten. The small ones are the most vicious and dangerous. Let us go.”
“But can you walk?” said Bob. “Have a cigar.”
“Yes; I will smoke,” said the young Malay, as he walked bravely on, though evidently in pain; and lighting a cigar, he talked in the most unconcerned way about the creature’s sudden attack.
“Such things are very common,” he said. “Down by the big river they seize the women who go for water, and carry off the girls who bathe. There are monsters, ten, twenty, and twenty-five feet long; but we are so used to them that it does not occur to us to take care.”
They were now walking over the ground they had that morning traversed, Ali seeming so much at ease, and smiling so nonchalantly, that his companions ceased to trouble him with advice and proposals that he should be carried.
At last they came to a spot where a fresh track turned off, and Ali paused.
“You will not think me rude,” he said, speaking with all the ease of a polished gentleman, “if I leave you here? Ismael will take you the nearest way down to the island. Yusuf will go with me. My leg is bad.”
“Then let us carry you,” cried Bob. “Here, we’ll soon cut down some bamboos and make a frame.”
“No, no, it is not so bad as that,” cried the young man, firmly; “and I would rather walk. This is a nearer way, and you will do as I ask, please.”