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"A gavial!" echoed the others, though not inquiringly; for they knew too well both the shape and character of the creature that was crossing the river. As all four first reached the bank arriving nearly at the same instant of time there were about twenty yards between the hideous saurian and her who seemed destined to destruction.
I am no faithless, fish-hunting Gavial, I, at Kasi to-day and Prayag to-morrow, as the saying is, but the true and constant watcher of the ford. It is not for nothing, child, that the village bears my name, and 'he who watches long, as the saying is, 'shall at last have his reward." "I have watched long very long nearly all my life, and my reward has been bites and blows," said the Jackal.
"A gavial!" cried Saloo, as his eyes rested on the body of the huge saurian, full twenty feet in length, with its head over a yard long, and jaws nearly the same, the upper one surmounted by a long knob-like protuberance, that distinguishes it from all other reptiles.
A little thought in life is like salt upon rice, as the boatmen say, and I have thought deeply always. The Gavial, my cousin, the fish-eater, has told me how hard it is for him to follow his fish, and how one fish differs from the other, and how he must know them all, both together and apart. I say that is wisdom; but, on the other hand, my cousin, the Gavial, lives among his people.
It is an amphibious animal, and fond of the water, in which its webbed hind feet enable it to move with considerable celerity. The huge reptile which threatened Helen's safety was twenty feet in length, but the gavial sometimes attains the extraordinary dimensions of eight to nine yards.
"Oh, I suppose every one means the same by that," said Melissa, with a slight air of rebuke. "Sir Gavial is an excellent family man quite blameless there; and so charitable round his place at Tiptop. Very different from Mr Barabbas, whose life, my husband tells me, is most objectionable, with actresses and that sort of thing. I think a man's morals should make a difference to us.
The gavial is found in Asia particularly in the Ganges and other Indian rivers, and is the crocodile of those parts. The alligator belongs to America, where it is distributed extensively both in North and South America. In the Spanish parts it is called `caiman, and there are two species well-known, viz the spectacled caiman of Guiana, and the alligator of the Mississippi.
Remaining motionless for a few seconds, and seeing that its victim was not only not going any further, but maintained its defiant attitude, the gavial crawled silently and cautiously on till the reeds no longer concealed it.
All at once the disengaged arm made a long clutch forward and grasped the upper jaw of the gavial. During the struggle this had been frequently wide agape, almost pointing vertically upward, as is customary with reptiles of the lizard kind, the singular conformation of the cervical vertebrae enabling them to open their jaws thus widely.
They now perceived the truth of what Saloo had been telling them: that there is no animal in all Borneo, either in its forests or its rivers, of which the mias feels fear. Certainly there is none more to be dreaded than the gavial crocodile; yet the great ape, judging by its present attitude, was in no sense afraid of it.
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