Sumichrast returned laden with a green iguana, and Lucien was dragging by a string a little alligator about thirty inches long.
"Look, M. L'Encuerado!" cried the boy; "here is an alligator or cayman, a relation of the lizards, and an enemy of man. This ugly young beast has only baby-teeth, so can not bite much. It feeds on fish, otters, calves, and many other animals. It is an amphibious being, M. L'Encuerado, a creature that lays eggs like fowls, but buries them in the sand, where the sun has to hatch them; it is a brute, too, which is so fond of man that it eats him whenever it has a chance."
"Take care it does not bite you," said I to the boy; "how did you manage to catch it?"
"I pursued it, thinking it was a big lizard; M. Sumichrast called out to me not to handle it, and then tied this creeper round its neck."
"You don't intend to take it away with you, I hope?"
"No; it is an ill-tempered creature, and is always anxious to use its teeth. I shall just show it to Master Job, and then let it go."
Neither Job nor his companions seemed flattered by this introduction, and the boy was disappointed when he deposited it at the water's edge; for, instead of plunging in, as he expected, it made a semicircle, and ran off towards the forest.
"Don't young alligators know how to swim?" he asked.
"Yes, Chanito; but they do not go into the water till they are old enough to defend themselves against the big males, which would devour them."
The sun had scarcely risen, when I saw on the shore, at about ten paces from us, three monsters luxuriously stretched out. One of them, from sixteen to twenty feet long, with a brown and rough body, opened its enormous jaws and showed us its frightful teeth. I took Lucien by the hand to lead him nearer to the reptiles, the better to inspect them.