Part 13 (2/2)

Thither one bright November morning we (”Paddy,” the most silent and alert of black boys, and myself) went. The tide was out, and we found a comparatively easy track close to the margin of the sea, having occasionally to wade through shallow pools and to clamber over rocks thickly studded with limpets.

Years gone by a huge log of pencil cedar had been cast among the boulders at Panjoo, and as I looked at the log ”Paddy” with a start indicated the presence of a novelty--a crocodile apparently in repose, with its head in the shadow of a boulder. I was carrying a pea rifle more for company than for anything else; for ”Paddy,” though of a most cheerful disposition, never made remarks. His conversation for the most part was compounded of eloquent looks and expressive gestures. A monosyllable to him was a laborious sentence; four or five words a speech. Once upon a time, it is said, a youthful German inadvertently blundered into a railway carriage reserved for Moltke. The glare of the great man brought three words of respectful apology for the intrusion.

The great man exclaimed with an air of exasperated boredom--”Insufferable talker!”--of course, all in German. ”Paddy,” like Moltke, was, averse from speech, unless when speech was absolutely vital. The presence of a 10-foot crocodile of unknowledgeable ferocity was a vital occasion. We hastily discussed in staccato whispers our plan of campaign. It was arranged that we should a.s.sail the enemy at close quarters. The calibre of the rifle was 22; its velocity most humble, the bullet of soft lead. Unless it entered the eye of the crocodile, and thence by luck its small brain, there was no hope of fatal effects.

Yet to take home such a rare trophy as a crocodile's skull, never before known or heard of on the island, was a hope sufficient to evoke and steady the instincts to be called upon as a necessary preliminary.

”Paddy” armed himself with weighty stones, and so manoeuvring to cut off the creature's retreat to the sea, we silently and with the utmost caution advanced.

Here let me advise readers to call to memory Nathaniel Parker Willis's poem, ”The Declaration” beginning--

'Twas late, and the gay company was gone, And light lay soft on the deserted room,

and ending:

She had been asleep.

The crocodile moved not as we, thirsting for its blood, stealthily approached. Then as I raised the rifle ”Paddy” tilted up his much-flattened nose, sniffed, and in tragic whisper said--”Dead!”

At all times a crocodile has a characteristic odour, a combination of fish and very sour and stale musk, but Paddy smelt more than the familiar scent--the scent of carrion.

Most unworthy of mortals, we had found the rarest of unprecious things--a crocodile that had died a natural death. Apparently a day, or at the most a day and a half, had elapsed since the creature had laid its head under the shadow of the boulder and died, far from accustomed haunts and kin. There was no sign of wound, bruise or putrefying sore.

All the teeth were perfect. It seemed like a crocodile taking its rest, with its awful stench around it.

With poles we levered the body out of the way of the tide. Months after, when Nature had done her part in the removal of all fleshy taint, we returned for the bones. The teeth are now scattered far and wide as trophies of the one and only crocodile ever acknowledged to have been discovered dead.

To account for such a phenomenal occurrence a theory should be forthcoming. This ill-fated crocodile is a.s.sumed to have wandered from its proper quarters--the Tully or the Hull River, or one of the unnamed mangrove creeks of the mainland. Having lost its way, it emerged from the sea at pretty Panjoo. So different was the locality from that to which the poor forlorn creature had been accustomed, it was at once seized with a fatal attack of home-sickness. Shedding a few tears natural--to it (”'Tis so, and the tears of it are wet”), it died (”and the elements once out of it, it transmigrates”). Such is the theory, annotated by Mark Antony's immortal after-dinner gossip, on the emotions and natural history of the species.

THE ARABS PRECEPT

”A Pearl of Great Price”

”Mister, I tell you, neber say anything. I hab bin reech once. I lorse my reechness for that I talk a little bit; but I talk too much. I poor man now. I lorse my chants. Suppose I no lorse my chants I am reech man of my country.”

So said Ha.s.san, the Arab with the pearly teeth, as he sat on the edge of the verandah one steaming January evening.

”Yes, Ha.s.san. How did you lose your money?”

”I hab no money, Mister. But I hab a pearl. My word, Mister, I tell you my yarn about that pearl. My beauty beeg pearl. White pearl--more white than snow-white! my pearl!”

The thin-framed swarthy Arab, with the flas.h.i.+ng eyes and glistening teeth, quivered with the intensity of his recollection.

”My beauty pearl. My beeg white pearl. My pearl of snow-white,”

he murmured as in a dreamy reverie he subdued the light of his great black eyes.

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