Some days after I had made this new acquaintance, I was sitting at home talking with my brother, when a native woman came crying and screaming to the bungalow door, tearing her hair out in handfuls; she got down on the veranda floor and struck her head against it, as if she really meant to dash her brains out. A crowd of other women stood at a short distance, crying and lamenting as if they were frantic. What was the matter? Half-a-dozen voices made answer in a discordant chorus, that while the poor woman was washing her clothes by the river side, her child--an infant about a year old--had been seized and swallowed by a Mugger. Although convinced that aid was now impossible, we took our guns and hastened to the spot where the accident happened; but all was still there, not a wavelet disturbed the surface of the stream. A small speckled kingfisher was hovering overhead, as if balanced in the air, with its beak bent down on its breast, watching the fish beneath; presently it darted like an arrow into the water; returned with an empty bill, and then went off, with its clear, sharp, twittering note, as if to console itself for the failure. One day I was sitting on the high bank of the river, taking snap shots with my gun at the large fish who were every now and then leaping out of the water. A favorite spaniel was bringing a fish out of the water that I had hit. It had swam already half way across the stream, when the water about six yards below her became suddenly disturbed; and, to my horror, up started the head and open jaws of an enormous crocodile. The dog gave a loud shriek, and sprang half out of the water. The Mugger swam rapidly, and had got within a yard of his intended victim, when I raised my gun, and took aim at the monster's head. A thud, a splash, a bubble, and a dusky red streak in the water, was all that ensued. Presently, however, Juno's glossy black head emerged from the water; and, to my delight, began to make rapid progress toward me, and landed safely. The poor brute, wet and shivering, coiled herself up at my feet, with her bright hazel eyes fixed on mine with ineffable satisfaction. Poor Juno subsequently fell a victim to the Muggers, when her master was not at hand to succor her. I mention these facts, to show that the diabolical revenge with which I afterward assisted in visiting these monsters, was not groundless. But the strongest occasion of it remains to be told. Just as the "rains" were beginning, my neighbor, Mr. Hall, sent me word that he intended paying me a short visit, and requested me to send a _syce_ (groom), with a saddle-horse, to meet him at a certain place on the road. The syce, Sidhoo, was a smart, open-chested, sinewy-limbed little fellow, a perfect model of a biped racer. He could run--as is the custom in the East--alongside his horse at a pace of seven or eight miles an hour, for a length of time that would astonish the best English pedestrian I ever heard of.