'Juggins sat down with his head in his hands. He was utterly unmanned. Now that the fright was over, I was beginning to be quite brave again. It is a way I have.
'"Never mind," I said. "Here is your specimen if you want it." I had put the thing down, and now pointed at it from a distance. It was not pleasant to touch. But Juggins only shuddered.
'"Bury it in Heaven's name!" he said. "I would not have it for all the world. Besides it was alive. I saw and heard it."'
'Well, we put it back in the grave, and next day we left the Sâkai country. We had seen quite as much of it as we wanted for a bit, I tell you.
'Juggins and I swore one another to secrecy, as neither of us fancied being told we were drunk or lying. You, however, know something of the uncanny things of the East, and to-night I have told the story to you. Now I am going to turn in. Do not give me away.'
Young Middleton went off to bed, and last year he died of fever and dysentery somewhere up country. His name was not Middleton, of course, so I am not really 'giving him away,' as he called it, even now. As for his companion, though he is still alive, I have called him Juggins, and, since the family is a large one, he will not, perhaps, be identified.
Footnotes:
[13] Close season = From November to February, when the rivers on the East Coast are closed to traffic by the North-East Monsoon.
[14] Sĕlâdang = wild buffalo.