The brunette placed her little hands close together, forming with their united palms a concave surface, and commenced dashing water upon the perverse blonde.
The latter instantly dropped the gold-fish, and retaliated.
An exciting and animated contest ensued. The bright globules flew around their heads, and rolled down their glittering tresses, as from the pinions of a swan; while their clear laughter rang out at intervals, as one or the other appeared victorious.
A hoarse voice drew my attention from this interesting spectacle. Looking whence it came, my eye rested upon a huge negress stretched under a cocoa-tree, who had raised herself on one arm, and was laughing at the contest.
It was her voice, then, I had mistaken for that of a man!
Becoming sensible of my intrusive position, I turned to retreat, when a shrill cry reached me from the pond.
The swans, with a frightened energy shrieked and flapped over the surface, the gold-fish shot to and fro like sunbeams, and leaped out of the water, quivering and terrified, and the birds on all sides screamed and chattered.
I sprang forward to ascertain the cause of this strange commotion. My eye fell upon the negress, who had risen, and, running out upon the parapet with uplifted arms, shouted in terrified accents:
“Valgame Dios—niñas! El cayman! el cayman!”
I looked across to the other side of the pond. A fearful object met my eyes—the cayman of Mexico! The hideous monster was slowly crawling over the low wall, dragging his lengthened body from a bed of aquatic plants.