There was a rush, a splash, and a scurry, and Rough’un came out of the water, looking about him and staring up at his masters, as if asking what they had done with the reptile he had chased.
“It was not a crocodile, Jack, but a large water-lizard,” said Mr Rogers.
“Plenty of crocodiles soon,” said the General, “big as three of me.”
He marked off a space of about twenty feet upon the ground, to show the length the reptiles of which he spoke, and then roughly marked out their shape.
“Not here,” he said; “over there.” And he pointed to the north.
“Here’s another,” cried Dick.
And this time it was Pompey and Caesar who had hunted out a reptile, which hissed, and snapped, and fought vigorously for a few moments when driven to bay, but its defiance was short lived.
While the engagement went on, the reptile looked dragon-like in aspect, with its ruffled and inflated throat, serrated back, and writhing tail; but in a very short time the dogs had obtained the mastery, and the creature was examined, proving to be a kind of iguana, nearly six feet in length, a great deal of which, however, was the attenuated tail.
The cracks and rifts in the hot bare stones as they climbed higher seemed to swarm with lizards of all kinds, ready to dart into their holes upon the approach of the dogs, while several times over the two Zulu boys came running back, beckoning to Dick and Jack to go and see some snake basking, twisted in a knot in some sunny spot.
Upon one of these occasions Jack was so struck by the peculiar swollen, short appearance of the little serpent that he ran back and hailed his father, who came up just as Coffee and Chicory were assuring Dick that if he did what he had proposed to do, namely, taken up the short, thick serpent, he would never have gone hunting any more.