" Lying Tom's a fraud : the crocodile story is 

 true ! " 



For our party, shooting guinea-fowl in the kaffir 

 lands along the river, came upon a kraal where there 

 sat a woman with an arm so scarred and marked that 

 we could not but ask what had caused it. There was 

 no difference in the stories, except that the kaffirs after 

 saying that the white man had kicked the crocodile 

 and beaten it with the bucket, added " and he kicked 

 and beat with the bucket the two men who were there, 

 saying that they were not men but dogs, who would not 

 go in and help the woman. But he was bewitched : 

 the crocodile could not touch him ! " 



Some of Tom's stories were truly incredible, but 

 not those in which he figured to advantage : he was 

 too brave a man to have consciously gained credit he 

 did not deserve. He died, slowly starved to death 

 by the cruel disease the brave, kindly, cheery spirit, 

 smiling unbeaten to the end. 



That was what Jim referred to when he called me 

 to kill the murderer of women and children. It 

 pleased him and others to say that this was the same 

 crocodile ; and I believe it was. The locality was 

 the same, and the kraal boys said that it was in the old 

 place from which all its murderous raids had been 

 made ; and that was all we knew. 



I took the rifle and went with the herd boy ; Jim 

 followed close behind, walking on his toes with the 

 waltzy springy movement of an ostrich, eager to get 

 ahead and repeatedly silenced and driven back by me 

 in the few hundred yards' walk to the river. 



382 



