The captain was a bit shaken up, but he made
a grab at the rope, and held on to it till we lowered a boat and
picked him up. He had to be got up on deck in a chair, and it was
two or three days before he was himself again. When he got round
he set to work again more earnestly than ever; and I believe that
if we had stopped in the West Indies long enough, there would not
have been a shark left in those waters."
"It was a capital plan, Davis, and if we ever take possession of
these rivers, we shall have to do something of that sort to get
rid of the brutes. Are the Malays afraid of them?"
"I don't know, Mr. Parkhurst, but I think they are. I had a chat
with a mate I met in the Myrtle, which went home the day after we
relieved them here. He had been up some of the rivers, and told me
that every village had a bathing place palisaded off so that the
alligators could not get at the bathers."
"Well, there is one thing--we shall have to be very careful when
we are out in boats, for if we were to run upon a sunken log and
knock a hole in the boat's bottom, there would not be much chance
of our ever reaching the shore."
"You are about right there, sir. I aint afraid of Malays, but it
gives me the creeps down my back when I think of one of them chaps
getting hold of me by the leg.
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