For it was indeed a crocodile, and of the finest kind; a colossal and amphibious lizard, more ferocious than the tiger of Bengal or the lion of the Atlas.
Dummkopf made straight for a little island—the terror of navigators and the salvation of swimmers. He had almost reached his place of refuge—with the crocodile so close on his heels that he could feel its warm breath on the soles of his feet—when he remembered that the monster was amphibious. Another man would have been paralysed by this reflection. Not so Dummkopf. He looked before him, and seeing a friendly palm-tree within reach—it was the solitary ornament of the little islet—he ran to it, took a spring, and climbed up its branches with the agility of a squirrel.
Having perched himself in safety near the summit, the learned Professor looked down upon the Nile. The crocodile was issuing slowly from the water, shaking, as he did so, his coat of glittering scale-armour He then walked along the sand like a fish that had suddenly become a quadruped, and gradually approached the foot of the palm-tree.
Dummkopf ransacked his memory for all he had ever read about crocodiles, with the view of ascertaining whether Pliny or any other natural historian of celebrity had ever stated that they were able to climb up palm-trees.
It appeared to him that both Pliny and Saavers had testified to the climbing capabilities of the crocodile.
“Oh, Philosophy!” he mentally exclaimed, “grant that my brethren, who make mistakes in every page, may also have erred on this point.”
Suddenly he remembered with a shudder that he himself had written an article in the Weisstadt Review in which he maintained that crocodiles were in the habit of climbing up trees like cats. He wished now that he had thrown the article into the fire; but it was too late. All Weisstadt had read it. It had even been translated into Arabian, and no author had yet contradicted it, although it had penetrated to Crocodilopolis itself.
The amphibious monster approached the palm-tree, looked up, and evinced the most lively joy at discovering Dummkopf among the branches. It walked round and round, looked up again, and then, recognising the impossibility of taking the stronghold by assault, sat down, as if determined to reduce it by blockade.
Here we must render homage to true science. Dummkopf, in spite of the preoccupation of the moment, was filled with regret when he found that, contrary to what he had stated in the Weisstadt Review, crocodiles did not climb trees. He saw that he had committed a gross error in Natural History, but he at the same time made up his mind never to correct it, if, by a miracle, he escaped from his present perilous position. He made the statement with a full conviction of its truth, and it added one more fact to Natural History. Crocodiles climbed up palm-trees. It was impossible to deny it now, even after sitting on a palm-tree up which a crocodile had been unable to climb. The conclusions of science must not rashly be interfered with.
In the meanwhile, the crocodile lay stretched out at the foot of the palm-tree, in calm anticipation of Dummkopf’s inevitable descent. From time to time the animal testified, by the wagging of its tail, to the pleasure it experienced in looking forward to that incident.