Chapter THIRTY ONE: A Hide Upon a Reptile

After thus concluding his long lecture upon alligators, the Indian grew restless, and fidgeted from side to side. It was plain to all, that the presence of the jacare was provoking him to fast-culminating excitement. As another hour passed, and the monster showed no signs of retiring, his excitement grew to auger so intense, as to be no longer withheld from seeking relief in action. So the Mundurucu hastily uprose, flinging aside the swimming-belts hitherto held in his hands. Everything was put by except his knife, and this, drawn from his _tanga_, was now held tightly in his grasp.

"What mean you, Munday?" inquired Trevannion, observing with some anxiety the actions of the Indian. "Surely you are not going to attack the monster? With such a poor weapon you would have no chance, even supposing you could get within striking distance before being swallowed up. Don't think of such a thing!"

"Not with this weapon, patron," replied the Indian, holding up the knife; "though even with it the Mundurucu would not fear to fight the jacare, and kill him, too. Then the brute would go to the bottom of the Gapo, taking me along. I don't want a ducking like that, to say nothing of the chances of being drowned. I must settle the account on the surface."

"My brave fellow, don't be imprudent! It is too great a risk. Let us stay here till morning. Night will bring a change, and the reptile will go off."

"Patron! the Mundurucu thinks differently. That jacare is a man-eater, strayed from some of the villages, perhaps Coary, that we have lately left. It has tasted man's blood,--even ours, that of your son, your own. It sees men in the tree. It will not retire till it has gratified its ravenous desires. We may stay in this tree till we starve, and from feebleness drop, one by one, from the branches."

"Let us try it for one night?"

"No, patron," responded the Indian, his eyes kindling with a revengeful fire, "not for one hour. The Mundurucu was willing to obey you in what related to the duty for which you hired him. He is no longer a _tapuyo_. The galatea is lost, the contract is at an end, and now he is free to do what he may please with his life. Patron!" continued the old man, with an energy that resembled returning youth, "my tribe would spurn me from the _malocca_ if I bore it any longer. Either I or the jacare must die!"

Silenced by the singularity of the Indian's sentiment and speech, Trevannion forbore further opposition. No one knew exactly what his purpose was, though his attitude and actions led all to believe that he meant to attack the jacare. With his knife? No. He had negatived this question himself. How then? There appeared to be no other weapon within reach. But there was, and his companions soon saw there was, as they sat silently watching his movements. The knife was only used as the means of procuring that weapon, which soon made its appearance in the form of a _macana_, or club, cut from one of the llianas,--a _bauhinia_ of heaviest wood, shaped something after the fashion of a "life-preserver," with a heavy knob of the creeper forming its head, and a shank about two feet long, tapering towards the handle. Armed with this weapon, and restoring the knife to his _tango_, the Indian came down and glided out along the horizontal limb already known to our story. To attract the reptile thither was not difficult. His presence would have been a sufficient lure, but some broken twigs cast upon the water served to hasten its approach to the spot. In confidence the jacare came on, believing that by some imprudence, or misadventure, at least one of those it had marked for its victims was about to drop into its hungry maw. One did drop,--not into its maw, or its jaws, but upon its back, close up to the swell of its shoulders. Looking down from the tree, his companions saw the Mundurucu astride upon the alligator, with one hand, the left, apparently inserted into the hollow socket of the reptile's eye, the other raised aloft, grasping the _macana_, that threatened to descend upon the skull of the jacare. It _did_ descend,-- crack!--crash!--crackle! After that there was not much to record. The Mundurucu was compelled to slide off his seat. The huge saurian, with its fractured skull, yielded to a simple physical law, turned over, showing its belly of yellowish white,--an aspect not a whit more lovely than that presented in its dark dorsal posterior. If not dead, there could be no doubt that the jacare was no longer dangerous; and as its conqueror returned to the tree, he was received with a storm of "_Vivas_" to which Tipperary Tom added his enthusiastic Irish "Hoor-raa!"