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We had tried some half-dozen good shots at small fellows, varying from two to five feet in length, when I began to lose interest in the sport; so I turned to watch a colony of little gray, jungle monkeys, that were swinging and chattering and scolding among the mangrove trees.

One of them picked a long dart-shaped fruit off the tree and essayed to drop it on the head of his mate below. I was about to call my companion’s attention to it, when I heard a crash among the roots near where the missile had fallen, and a crocodile, so large that I distrusted my senses, turned his great log-like head to one side and gazed up at the frightened monkeys. I raised my hand, and the launch paused not over twenty yards from where he lay patiently waiting for one of the monkeys to drop within reach of his great jaws.

The sun had dried the mud on his back until the entire surface reminded me of the beach of a muddy mill-pond that I used to frequent as a boy.

“Boyah besar!” (A royal crocodile) repeated our Malays under their breaths.

The Chief Justice and I fired at the same time, and the massive fellow who, but a moment before, had looked to be as stiff and clumsy as a bar of pig iron, now seemed to be made of india-rubber and steel springs. I should not have been more surprised had the great timboso tree, beside which he lay, arisen and danced a jig. He seemed to spring from the middle up into the air without the aid of either his head or his tail. Then he brought his tail around in a circle and struck the skeleton roots of the mangrove with such force as to dislodge a small monkey in its top, which fell whistling with fright into the lower limbs, while the crocodile’s great jaws, which seemed to measure a third of his length, opened and shut viciously, snapping off limbs and roots like straws.

“He sick!” shouted the Chief Justice. “Fire quick.”

I threw the cartridge from the magazine into the barrel, and raised the gun to my shoulder just as the huge saurian struck the water. My bullet caught him underneath, near the back legs. My companion’s must have had more effect, for the crocodile stopped as though stunned. I had time to drop my gun and snatch up my revolver.

It was an easy shot. The bullet sped true to its mark and entered one of the small fiery eyes. The huge frame seemed to quiver as though a charge of electricity had gone through it and then stiffened out,–dead.

Our Malay boys got a rope of tough gamooty fibres around the great head, and we towed our prize out into the stream just as the Resident’s launch, bearing the Prince and the ladies, steamed up the river to watch the sport.

A crowd of servants got the crocodile up on the bank near the palace grounds and drew it two hundred yards to their quarters. Now comes the strangest part of the story.

My servants had half completed the task of skinning him, for I wished to send his hide to the Smithsonian, when the muezzin sounded the call to prayers from the little mosque near by. In an instant the devout Mohammedans were on their faces and the crocodile in his half-skinned state was left until a more convenient time. At six o’clock the next morning I was awakened by a knock at my door:–

“Tuan, Tuan Consul, come see boyah (crocodile).”

I got up, wrapped a sarong about me, put my feet into a pair of grass slippers, and followed my guide out of the palace, through the courts to where the crocodile had been the night before, but no crocodile was to be seen. My guide grinned and pointed to a heavy trail that looked like the track of a stone-boat drawn by a yoke of oxen.