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 sunk down upon one knee, about four yards from the
water's edge, determining to thrust it down his throat in case he gave me
an opportunity. I certainly felt somewhat uncomfortable in this situation,
and I thought of Cerberus on the other side of the Styx ferry. The people
pulled the cayman to the surface; he plunged furiously as soon as he
arrived in these upper regions, and immediately went below again on their
slackening the rope.
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