I thanked the worthy papa for his story more warmly, perhaps, than he expected. He had been as much pleased by narrating as I had been by listening; but he was not very particular about the quality of his facts, and unintentionally made me do penance for the excessive pleasure I had experienced by giving me an account—two hours long, and with equal unction—of a tremendous controversy then raging as to the proper form of electing the sub-patriarch of Cairo. It would have been ungrateful to interrupt him, although there seemed no end to his garrulity. Fortunately, two or three people at length came in; I compromised my dignity as a heretic by kissing his hand, and escaped, to turn over this curious story in my mind. Next day I went to the Greek church, and saw a melancholy-looking face through the bars of the cage-like gallery in which the women sit. I am quite certain it was that of Lady Silver-Voice, but no one whom I asked seemed to know her. The boy did not show himself. It was my intention to go another Sunday, and observe more accurately, for I really felt a deep interest in this unfortunate lady. But other thoughts and occupations came upon me, and it was only by an accident that, as I have said, these circumstances recurred last night to my mind.
THE CROCODILE BATTERY.
In the summer of 1846, when every body in England was crazy with railway gambling, I was sojourning on the banks of the Rohan, a small stream in one of the northwestern provinces of India. Here I first became acquainted, with the Mugger, or Indian crocodile. I had often before leaving England, seen, in museums, stuffed specimens of the animal, and had read in "Voyages and Travels," all sorts of horrible and incredible stories concerning them. I had a lively recollection of Waterton riding close to the water's edge on the back of an American cayman, and I had a confused notion of sacred crocodiles on the banks of the Nile. I always felt more or less inclined to regard the whole race as having affinities with Sinbad's "roc," and the wild men of the woods, who only refrained from speaking for fear of being made to work.
My ideas respecting the natural history of crocodiles were in this stage of development when, one day, while paddling up the Rohan, I saw what appeared to be a half-burned log of wood lying on a sand-bank. I paddled close up to it. To my astonishment, it proved to be a huge reptile. The old stories of dragons, griffins, and monsters, seemed no longer fables; the speculations of geologists concerning, mososaurians, hylæsaurians, and plesiosaurians, were no longer dreams. There, in all his scaly magnificence, was a real saurian, nearly eighteen feet long. For a while I stood gazing at this, to me, new fellow-citizen of the world, and speculating on his mental constitution. The monster was, or pretended to be, asleep. I wondered if he dreamt, and what his dreams or reveries might be about; possibly he was dreaming of the same old world with which I associated him—possibly of the fish who were swimming in the waters below: or, he might be thinking of the men and women he had swallowed in the course of his existence. There was a snort; perhaps that was occasioned by the bugles and heavy brass ornaments which had adorned the limbs of some Hindoo beauty he had eaten, and which were lying heavy and indigestible on his stomach. But presently the brute lay so still, and seemed so tranquil and placid in his sleep, that it was difficult to imagine him guilty of such atrocities. He did not appear to be disturbed by remorse, or the twitchings of a guilty conscience: it may have been all a slander. I felt so kindly disposed toward him, that I could not imagine it possible that if awake he would feel disposed to eat me. Let us see! so making a splash with my paddle, I wakened the sleeping beauty. He instantly started up, and opened, what appeared—what indeed proved to be—an enlarged man-trap; disclosing a red, slimy cavern within, fringed with great conical fangs. He closed it with a snap that made me shudder, and then plunged into the water, his eyes glaring with hate and defiance.
Some days after I had made this new acquaintance, I was sitting at home talking with my brother, when a native woman came crying and screaming to the bungalow door, tearing her hair out in handfuls; she got down on the veranda floor and struck her head against it, as if she really meant to dash her brains out. A crowd of other women stood at a short distance, crying and lamenting as if they were frantic. What was the matter? Half-a-dozen voices made answer in a discordant chorus, that while the poor woman was washing her clothes by the river side, her child—an infant about a year old—had been seized and swallowed by a Mugger. Although convinced that aid was now impossible, we took our guns and hastened to the spot where the accident happened; but all was still there, not a wavelet disturbed the surface of the stream. A small speckled kingfisher was hovering overhead, as if balanced in the air, with its beak bent down on its breast, watching the fish beneath; presently it darted like an arrow into the water; returned with an empty bill, and then went off, with its clear, sharp, twittering note, as if to console itself for the failure.
One day I was sitting on the high bank of the river, taking snap shots with my gun at the large fish who were every now and then leaping out of the water. A favorite spaniel was bringing a fish out of the water that I had hit. It had swam already half way across the stream, when the water about six yards below her became suddenly disturbed; and, to my horror, up started the head and open jaws of an enormous crocodile. The dog gave a loud shriek, and sprang half out of the water. The Mugger swam rapidly, and had got within a yard of his intended victim, when I raised my gun, and took aim at the monster's head. A thud, a splash, a bubble, and a dusky red streak in the water, was all that ensued. Presently, however, Juno's glossy black head emerged from the water; and, to my delight, began to make rapid progress toward me, and landed safely. The poor brute, wet and shivering, coiled herself up at my feet, with her bright hazel eyes fixed on mine with ineffable satisfaction. Poor Juno subsequently fell a victim to the Muggers, when her master was not at hand to succor her. I mention these facts, to show that the diabolical revenge with which I afterward assisted in visiting these monsters, was not groundless. But the strongest occasion of it remains to be told.
Just as the "rains" were beginning, my neighbor, Mr. Hall, sent me word that he intended paying me a short visit, and requested me to send a syce (groom), with a saddle-horse, to meet him at a certain place on the road. The syce, Sidhoo, was a smart, open-chested, sinewy-limbed little fellow, a perfect model of a biped racer. He could run—as is the custom in the East—alongside his horse at a pace of seven or eight miles an hour, for a length of time that would astonish the best English pedestrian I ever heard of.
Toward evening, Mr. Hall rode up to the bungalow, dripping with water, and covered with mud. I saw at once that some accident had happened, and hastened to assist him.
As soon as he got inside, he said, in answer to my bantering about his "spill"—