"If it is the will of Allah that you should get a crocodile, you will
get a crocodile. If it is not the will of Allah that you should get a
crocodile, you will not get a crocodile."
There was no gainsaying this. Mohammedan races are fond of propounding
truisms with an air of having evolved a new idea out of their unassisted
brains, and that is why people often think them so very wise.
"You see," said Harry, after bowing his head in assent to the last
proposition, "I promised my mother a crocodile, and it seems so absurd
to go up the Nile and not be able to get one. Then they are all white,
and I expected them to be black."
"White men call the devil and crocodiles black; black men call them
white," replied Hassib, who was a wag. "You now see which is right."
"Good again; that is one for me!" laughed Harry. "But I should really
like to get one if I could."
"And the English think the crocodile such a pretty ornament!" said
Hassib. "It is a strange taste."
And then Harry thought for the first time where on earth would they put
the crocodile if they got it. But that was a future consideration.
"Shall we shoot the cataract to-night?" he asked, presently.
"No," said Hassib, "there will not be light enough. We shall anchor for
the night soon, and start at daybreak."
The river soon grew broader and calmer, and in half an hour they came to
the place where they were to remain, and cast anchor.
Harry went ashore with his rifle, in hopes of a shot at the amphibious
creatures, and his fishing tackle to keep him in patience while he was
waiting for it. Hassib accompanied him to point out the place he had
mentioned where the monsters were wont to lie.
For some time he got neither a shot nor a bite; but presently there came
a tremendous tug at his line. The fish tugged, and Harry tugged, and
the line being strong enough to hold a whale nearly, it seemed to be a
question whether Harry pulled the fish out, or the fish pulled Harry in.
In fact it was a regular tug of war.
Harry was the victor, and his opponent came to bank with a bound and
flop.
"By jove! I have got a crocodile after all!" cried Harry, jumping back,
as a hideous thing four feet long, and having the same number of legs,
and a tail, seemed making towards him. The reis, laughing in a manner
most contrary to our notions of the staid impassive Arab, began
hammering the creature with a stick, until it lay quiet enough.
"What is it?" asked the captor, approaching cautiously.
"A big lizard," replied Hassib, "so your learned white men say;
`alligator lizard' I heard one call it. But it is really a thing that
comes out of an addled crocodile's egg."
Harry looked up quickly, but the reis was perfectly grave. And on such
occasions he always pretended to believe, whether he did or no. Hassib
was quite confident of the correctness of his information, and how could
it be disproved, or, for that matter, why should it be?
The sun was now very low on the horizon, and would soon take its sand-
bath. Hassib laid his hand on Forsyth's arm and ducked behind a mound
on the edge of the bank. Harry did the same.
"One, two, five, seven," counted Hassib. Harry peeped, and saw that
mystic number of grey crocodiles lying on the island where he had been
looking for them.
The nearest was about two hundred yards off. By stalking him along the
bank, as he was not quite opposite, he got perhaps thirty yards nearer.
As has been said, he was a really first-rate rifle-shot, and the
prospects of that crocodile could not be considered rosy.
Scales are hard, but so are conical bullets. Harry took a steady aim at
what he had been taught to consider the most vulnerable part get-at-
able, and pulled. Crack! Smack! He heard the ball tell as plainly as
if it were on an iron target. But the absurd crocodile acted as all the
others he had shot at had done: he rolled over into the water and
disappeared, and the other six kept him company.
"He is killed! Oh, he is killed!" cried the reis, much excited. "He
will float soon, you will see. When they are shot dead their bodies
soon float."
Whether this creature was an exception, or was not shot dead, or was
carried down to the cataract before he got to the floating stage, and so
came up where no one wanted him, cannot be said. But they saw him no
more, and he was numbered among the partridges who have gone away to
die, and the rabbits that were hit so hard, but crept away into holes!
Going back to where the boat lay they found another lying near her,
which had been dragged up the last bit of the cataract and brought up so
far since their arrival, while the crew had gone ashore and lit a fire,
round which they were gathered.
Forsyth and Hassib went up to them for news, but there was not much.
Alexandria was being rebuilt after the bombardment; Arabi's insurrection
was quite over, and Mohammed Tewfik Pasha firmly established. The
English soldiers were leaving, and the country would soon be quit of
them entirely.
"Not it," said one of the new-comers, who seemed to be a passenger.
Certainly not a sailor, for his hands were delicate, and he lacked
manliness when compared with the others of the party. "The English will
not be so easy to get rid of, make sure of that."