"I will ring the speed-bell now, and see how that will affect them," replied the captain, suiting the action to the word.
The Blanchita darted ahead at her usual speed. Clingman began to overhaul the painter of the sampan, for it did not look strong enough for the present strain. He had scarcely got hold of it before it snapped in the middle, and relieved the strain on the crocodiles. The steamer backed at the order of the captain; and a strong line was thrown into the sampan, which one of the Malays seized and made fast.
When the strain upon them was thus removed, the saurians made violent struggles to escape. The yacht then went ahead again, and the speed-bell was rung immediately. The pressure on the game was renewed, and they ceased to struggle. The apparatus held fast, for the saurian fishers were experienced in their business, and had done their work well.
At eight o'clock the Blanchita reached the mouth of the river. The crocodiles were not dead, but their stomachs must have been in a terrible condition. To Louis it seemed to be cruel to prolong their sufferings; and he wished Achang to request the Malays to kill them, and Scott agreed with him. The Bornean said they could not kill them while they were towing behind, and that, if the lines were slacked, they might get away.
The captain took the matter in hand, and told Achang what he intended to do, which he communicated to the reptile-hunters. On the starboard hand Scott fixed his gaze on a small tongue of land extending out into the river. Taking the wheel himself, he run her close to the land some distance above the point, and worked the sampan and its tow close to the shore. The tow-line of the sampan was then lengthened out to a hundred feet or more, and the yacht went ahead again, rounding the point, so that the peninsula lay between the steamer and her tow.
Then she went ahead again, and the result was that she pulled the sampan upon the point; and as she was flat-bottomed, there was no difficulty in doing so. The Blanchita continued on her course, and the two crocodiles were landed after her. One of the Malays then produced a parong latok; and even more skilfully than Achang had done the job, he cut off the heads of both reptiles. They were out of misery then, and Louis was satisfied.
The yacht was then run up to the point, and Lane was sent on shore to measure the reptiles, while the fishermen proceeded to recover the apparatus from the stomachs of the defunct reptiles. The larger crocodile was twelve feet and four inches long, and the other ten feet and seven inches. The voyage was resumed on the sea to the mouth of the Sadong; and in three hours more she entered the stream, which was a large one, averaging half a mile wide for twenty miles.
"Bujang!" called Achang, as instructed by the captain. "Do you want to go any farther?"
The head man replied in his own language that they wished to go to Simujan, or till they came to plenty of game. The Bornean said Bujang was a great hunter, for he had killed fifty-three crocodiles that year. The yacht, with the sampan still in tow, started up the river, keeping in the middle of it. Just before sunset she reached the junction of the Simujan and Sadong.
On one side of the branch stream there was a considerable Malay village, backed by an abundance of cocoanut palms; and, of course, the houses were built on stilts close to the water. On the other side was the Chinese kampon, or quarter, consisting largely of shops and trading-houses. Louis Belgrave had been presented to the officials at Sarawak as the owner of the Guardian-Mother, and that established him as a person of great distinction.