“Yah!” yelled the man nearest to the water, and he flung himself back against his mates, who could not for a moment tell what had terrified him.
On approaching the water’s edge where it flowed along dark and deep beneath the pendent boughs they heard a wallow and a splash, and the lookers-on had a startled glance at a great horny, muddied head and a pair of tooth-serrated gaping jaws, which rose above the surface and were plunged again into the bloodstained water, to disappear, but to be followed by a great gnarled-bark back and a long tail which lashed the water before it passed out of sight.
Before another word could be uttered the water beneath the boughs seemed to boil up in eddies as if it were being churned from below, and during a brief space the horrified lookers-on had a glimpse or two of the slowly twining and writhing body of the serpent, as it rose to the surface from time to time, while over and under enemies were dragging at it from all directions.
“Well, if that isn’t a rum un, I’m a Dutchman,” cried the second mate, as they watched the tremendous struggle going on. It gradually receded farther from the bank and the combatants were carried down stream by the current. “I never saw anything like that but once before.”
“Well, I never saw it once,” said the American; while Brace was silent, standing peering through the dipping boughs so as not to lose an atom of what was going on. “Where was yours?”
“At home in our river,” said the mate. “I was lying on my chest with my hand over the side of the camp-shedding, as we called the boards put to keep up the river-bank by the weir. I was looking down through the clear water at a shoal of little perch playing about, waiting for anything that might be swept over the weir, when a big earth-worm came down and the perch all went for it together, some at the head, some at the tail, or the middle, or anywhere they could get hold, and it was just like this till they all went out of sight as this has done. For it’s gone now, hasn’t it?”
“Yes, quite out of sight,” said Brace, drawing a deep, sighing breath. “Why, the river seems to be alive with alligators.”
“Hungry ones too,” said Lynton, “and they’ve got a fine big full-flavoured worm for breakfast. Fancy their laying hold of his tail and pulling him away from us like that!”
“Say, Jemmy,” said one of the sailors, speaking to another who was standing near him, “if at any time I’m ashore and want to come aboard, you’ll have to send the boat, for I’m blessed if I’m going to try a swim.”
“That’s a downright fine specimen gone, Mr Brace,” said Briscoe drily; “and I’m real sorry we lost him. What do you say about its length? I think we might make it fifty feet?”