end a flash of lightning that would shatter his scaly hulk to pieces.

Every thing being now ready, I made the fatal contact. Our success was
complete! We felt a shock, as if something had fallen down the bank--a
mound of muddy water rose, with a muffled, rumbling sound, and then
burst out to a column of dark smoke. A splashing and bubbling succeeded,
and then a great crimson patch floated on the water, like a variegated
carpet pattern. Strange-looking fragments of scaly skin were picked up
by the natives from the water's edge, and brought to us amidst a very
general rejoicing. The exploded Mugger floated down the stream, and the
current soon carried it out of sight. We were not at all sorry, for it
looked such a horrible mess that we felt no desire to examine it.

Our sense of triumphant satisfaction was, however, sadly damped about a
week afterward, when we received the mortifying announcement, that
Sidhoo's Mugger was still alive, and on his old beat, apparently
uninjured. It was evident that we had blasted the wrong Mugger! We
consoled ourselves with the reflection, that if he were not Sidhoo's
murderer, it was very _likely_ he was not wholly innocent of other
atrocities, and therefore deserved his fate.

Of course it was impossible to rest while Sidhoo's Mugger remained
alive, so we were not long in preparing for a second expedition. This
time we took the precaution of not charging the battery until we were
certain that the bait was swallowed. The acid, diluted to the necessary
strength, was, therefore, carried in one of those brown earthenware jars
called gray-beards, which had come out to us full of Glenlivet whisky.
We commenced dragging the kid up the stream, as before; but, having
walked more than a mile without getting a bite, we were getting rather
disheartened, and sat down to rest, struck a light, and smoked a
cheroot. Hall laid down, having manufactured an impromptu easy chair out
of his coil of rope, with the inflated goat-skin placed above it. My
brother was not long in imitating his example, and I laid down under the
shade of some reeds, near to the water's edge. The heat was oppressive,
and we were discussing the probability of getting a bite that day, and
lamenting that we had not brought some pale ale along with us, when,
when, all at once, I got a sharp blow on the leg, while my brother came
spinning down the bank like a teetotem--a companion picture to Hall; who
was revolving down the opposite ba