“No; I can’t see anything. Yes, I can; two brown-looking knobs. What is it? Part of a tree. Oh! gone. I know now; it was a crocodile.”
“No doubt about that, Ned, and I daresay we shall see plenty more.”
“Hah!” ejaculated the Malay again; and he pointed this time toward the right bank of the river, or rather to the fringe of mangroves on that side.
“Yes, I can see that one plain, just those two knobs. Why doesn’t it show more?”
“For the sake of being safe perhaps. There you can see its yes now, just above the surface.”
“But the gun, uncle. Let’s shoot one.”
“Waste of powder and ball, my boy. It is a great chance if we could hit a vulnerable part, and I don’t like wounding anything unnecessarily.”
“Are there many of those things here?” said Ned, after watching the two prominences just above the water, and vainly trying to make out the reptile’s body.
“Many things?” said the man, evidently puzzled.
“Yes; crocodiles?”