But now the old ladies grew afraid to send their lap-dogs to Doctor Dolittle because of the
crocodile; and the farmers wouldn't believe that he would not eat the lambs and sick calves they brought to be cured.
He knew more of the language of
crocodiles than did any man.
The
crocodile passes, but soon the boys appear again, for the procession must continue indefinitely until one of the parties stops or changes its pace.
"How short was the
crocodile?" I asked, as the story was getting a little complicated.
His efforts but served to accelerate the speed of the
crocodile, and just as the ape-man realized that he had reached the limit of his endurance he felt his body dragged to a muddy bed and his nostrils rise above the water's surface.
The
crocodile, leaving scarcely a ripple behind, sank down and disappeared.
"Ha!" said Joe, "blacks instead of
crocodiles! Well, I prefer it as it is; but how in the mischief dare these fellows go in bathing in such places?"
"Some
crocodile has feasted well," he said significantly.
Once an unwary
crocodile attacked him but the sinuous trunk dove beneath the surface and grasping the amphibian about the middle dragged it to light and hurled it a hundred feet down stream.
A bailiff banded the dead leaf to the
crocodile, who made a doleful shake of the head, and passed it on to the president, who gave it to the procurator of the king in the ecclesiastical court, and thus it made the circuit of the hail.
I couldn't quite understand why Peggotty looked so queer, or why she was so ready to go back to the
crocodiles. However, we returned to those monsters, with fresh wakefulness on my part, and we left their eggs in the sand for the sun to hatch; and we ran away from them, and baffled them by constantly turning, which they were unable to do quickly, on account of their unwieldy make; and we went into the water after them, as natives, and put sharp pieces of timber down their throats; and in short we ran the whole
crocodile gauntlet.
Here is neither boat nor bridge, and the river is so full of hippopotami, or river-horses, and
crocodiles, that it is impossible to swim over without danger of being devoured.