nger.

"Eh? what?" said the boy, staring across the water. "What is it--a
bird? where?"

"Don't you see. There, fifty yards away, on the surface of the water?"

"No; I can't see anything. Yes, I can; two brown-looking knobs. What
is it? Part of a tree. Oh! gone. I know now; it was a crocodile."

"No doubt about that, Ned, and I daresay we shall see plenty more."

"Hah!" ejaculated the Malay again; and he pointed this time toward the
right bank of the river, or rather to the fringe of mangroves on that
side.

"Yes, I can see that one plain, just those two knobs. Why doesn't it
show more?"

"For the sake of being safe perhaps. There you can see its yes now,
just above the surface."

"But the gun, uncle. Let's shoot one."

"Waste of powder and ball, my boy. It is a great chance if we could hit
a vulnerable part, and I don't like wounding anything unnecessarily."

"Are there many of those things here?" said Ned, after watching the two
prominences just above the water, and vainly trying to make out the
reptile's body.

"Many things?" said the man, evidently puzzled.

"Yes; crocodiles?"

"Hah! Yes, plenty, many; sahib jump in and swim, crocodile--"

He ceased speaking and finished in pantomime, by raising one hand and
rapidly catching the other just at the wrist.

"Snap at me?" said Ned.

"Yes, sahib. Catch, take under water. Eat."

"I say, though, is he stuffing me? Do they really seize people, or is
it a traveller's tale?" said Ned, appealing to his uncle; but the Malay,
who had been engaged from his knowledge of English to act as interpreter
up the river, caught at the boy's words, though he did not quite grasp
his meaning.

"No, no, sahib; not stuff you. Crocodile stuff, fill himself much as he
can eat."

Then he turned sharply and said a few words to his companions in the
Malay tongue, and they replied eagerly in chorus.

"There's no doubt about it, Ned," said his uncle. "They are loathsome
beasts, and will drag anything under water that they can get hold of."

"Then we ought to kill it," said Ned excitedly. "Let's shoot it, at
once."

"Where is it?"

"That one's gone too," said Ned, with a disappointed air.

"Plenty more chances, my boy; but if you do try your skill with a gun,
wait till we see one of the reptiles on the bank."

"But there is no bank."

"Wait a bit, and you'll see sand-banks and mud-banks in plenty. But the
appearance of those creatures answers one o