miles on
purpose to get a cayman uninjured, and not to carry back a mutilated
specimen. I rejected their proposition with firmness, and darted a
disdainful eye upon the Indians.

"Daddy Quashi was again beginning to remonstrate, and I chased him on the
sand-bank for a quarter of a mile. He told me afterwards, he thought he
should have dropped down dead with fright, for he was firmly persuaded,
if I had caught him, I should have bundled him into the cayman's jaws.
Here then we stood, in silence, like a calm before a thunder-storm. 'Hoc
res summa loco. Scinditur in contraria valgus.' They wanted to kill
him, and I wanted to take him alive.

"I now walked up and down the sand, revolving a dozen projects in my
head. The canoe was at a considerable distance, and I ordered the people
to bring it round to the place where we were. The mast was eight feet
long, and not much thicker than my wrist. I took it out of the canoe,
and wrapped the sail round the end of it. Now it appeared clear to me,
that if I went down upon one knee, and held the mast in the same position
as the soldier holds his bayonet when rushing to the charge, I could
force it down the cayman's throat, should he come open-mouthed at me.
When this was told to the Indians, they brightened up, and said they
would help me to pull him out of the river.

"'Brave squad!' said I to myself, '"Audax omnia perpeti," now that you
have got me betwixt yourselves and danger.' I then mustered all hands
for the last time before the battle. We were, four South American
savages, two negroes from Africa, a creole from Trinidad, and myself, a
white man from Yorkshire. In fact, a little Tower of Babel group, in
dress, no dress, address, and language.

"Daddy Quashi hung in the rear; I showed him a large Spanish knife, which
I always carried in the waistband of my trousers: it spoke volumes to
him, and he shrugged up his shoulders in absolute despair. The sun was
just peeping over the high forests on the eastern hills, as if coming to
look on, and bid us act with becoming fortitude. I placed all the people
at the end of the rope, and ordered them to pull till the cayman appeared
on the surface of the water and then, should he plunge, to slacken the
rope and let him go again into the deep.

"I now took the mast of the canoe in my hand (the sail being tied round
the end of the mast) and sank down upon one knee, about four yards from
the water's edge, determining to th