"The devil's not dead yet. Shall I put another bullet into him?" said Wargrave.
"It's only wasting a cartridge," replied his friend. "He can't do any more harm. When the men come we'll have him cut open and see what he's got inside him."
"Oh, do you think he has ever eaten any human being?" she asked, gazing with loathing at the huge reptile.
"Judging from the way he stalked you I should think he has," answered Raymond. "Hullo! here comes one of the camel-drivers with some of the villagers. They'll be able to tell us about him."
On the rim of the basin appeared a group of natives moving in their direction. Suddenly they caught sight of the crocodile, stopped and pointed to it and began to talk excitedly. One of the local peasants ran back shouting. The rest hurried down for a closer view of the reptile. A chorus of wonder rose from them as they stood round it. The Mahommedan camel-driver exclaimed in Hindustani:
"_Ahré, bhai! Kiya janwar! Pukka shaitan!_ (Ah, brother! What an animal! A veritable devil!)"
As the villagers spoke only the dialect of the State, Raymond used this man as interpreter and questioned them about the crocodile. They asserted that it had inhabited the tank for many years--hundreds, said one man. It had, to their certain knowledge, killed several women incautiously bathing or drawing water from the tank. As women are not valued highly by the poorer Hindus this did not make the _mugger_ very unpopular. But early in that very year it had committed the awful crime of dragging under water and devouring a Brahmini bull, an animal devoted to the Gods and held sacrosanct.
By this time the crocodile had breathed its last. Raymond measured it roughly and found it to be over twelve feet in length. The peasants turned the great body on its back. Wargrave saw that the skin underneath was too thick to be made into leather, so he bade them cut the belly open. The stomach contained many shells of freshwater crabs and crayfish, as well as a surprising amount of large pebbles, either taken for digestive purposes or swallowed when the fish were being scooped up off the bottom. But further search resulted in the finding of several heavy brass or copper anklets and armlets, such as are worn by Indian women. Some had evidently been a long time in the reptile's interior.