“He says,” replied Transom in bad Spanish, “that he has swallowed an alligator, or something of that sort, sir.” Then a loud yawn.
“Swallowed a what?” rejoined Campana, greatly astonished.
“No, no,” snorted the captain—“I am wrong—he says he has been stung by an alligator.”
“Stung by an alligator!—impossible.”
“Why, then,” persisted the skipper, “if he be not stung by an alligator, or if he has not really swallowed one, at all events an alligator has either stung or swallowed him—so make the most of it, Don Ricardo.”
“Why this is absurd, with all submission,” continued Campana; “how the deuce could he swallow an alligator, or an alligator get into my house to annoy him?”
“D—n it,” said Transom, half tipsy and very sleepy, “that’s his look out. You are very unreasonable, Don Ricardo; all that is the affair of friend Bang and the alligator; my purpose is solely to convey his meaning faithfully”—a loud snore.
“Oh,” said Campana, laughing, “I see, I see; I left your friend sobre mesa, [on the table,] but now I see he is sub rosa.”
“Help, good people, help!” roared Bang—“help, or my nose will reach from this to the Moro Castle—Help!”
We got him out, and were I to live a thousand years, which would be a tolerably good spell, I don’t think I could forget his appearance. His nose, usually the smallest article of the kind that I ever saw, was now swollen as large as my fist, and as purple as a mulberry—the distension of the skin, from the venomous sting of the reptile—for stung he had been by a scorpion—made it semi—transparent, so that it looked like a large blob of currant jelly hung on a peg in the middle of his face, or a gigantic leech, gorged with blood, giving his visage the semblance of some grotesque old-fashioned dial, with a fantastic gnomon.