The Rajah of Dah | Page 6

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 of your questions. There must be plenty of fish in the river, for that forms their principal food."
Just then their attention was taken up by one of the Malay boatmen drawing in his oar, and then taking out a small bag from which he extracted a piece of broken betel-nut and a half-dried leaf. Then from the same bag he took a small brass box carefully hammered to form a pattern, and upon opening this a thick white paste became visible.
"What's that?" whispered Ned.
"Lime made from coral and mixed into a paste with water."
"But what is he going to do?"
"Watch him."
Ned was already watching, and saw the man take a little of the wet lime paste from the box with his finger, and smear it over the leaf. Then the box was put away, and the scrap of nut carefully rolled up in the leaf and placed in the man's mouth, when he went on contentedly chewing as he resumed his oar and pulled steadily on.
"I never saw them get their betel ready to chew before, uncle," whispered Ned. "I say, what leaf is that?"
"Sirih, a little climbing kind of pepper."
"Well," continued Ned with a laugh; "I don't know whether that's a bad habit, but it looks a very nasty one. What savages!"
"They might say the same about our Jacks with their tobacco," said his uncle.--"How would you like to live there?"
He pointed to where, in an opening in the mangroves, a tiny village of a few houses became visible, mere huts, but pretty enough to look at with their highly-pitched, palm-thatched roofs, showing picturesque gables and ornamentally woven sides, the whole raised on bamboo piles, so as to place them six or eight feet above the level of the river. A few cocoa-nut trees grew close at hand, and a couple of good-sized boats were drawn up and tied to posts, while a group of the occupants stood gazing at the passing party.
"No; I don't think I should like to live there," said Ned, as the men rowed on, and the houses with their cluster of palm-like trees gave place once more to the monotonous green of the mangroves. And now the boy altered his tactics. For a time he had scorned the shelter of the thatched roof which covered the afterpart of the roomy boat, and been all life and activity, making the Malays smile at his restlessness, as he passed among them resting his hand first on one, then on another brawny shoulder, to get right forward to the sharply-pointed prow, and sit there looking up the river; while his uncle rearranged some of the packages and impedimenta necessary for their long trip.
"There," he said, as he finished for the time, by hanging two guns in slings from the roof, Ned having returned to sit down, and he began wiping his face. "I think that will do. If we had designed a boat to suit us for our trip, we couldn't have contrived anything better. That is the beauty of travelling in a country where the rivers are the only roads. You require no bearers, and you have no worry about men being dissatisfied with their loads, and then having to set up a tent when the day's journey is over. Here we are with a roof over us in our travelling tent, and all we have to do at night is to tether the boat to the shore,