A Malay silenced them by throwing a half-ripe cocoanut into the midst of the
tree, and we moved on to the shade of the sturdiest palm. There we sat down to
rest and eat some biscuits softened in the milk of a cocoanut.
“There is a boa in the roots of the banian, Aboo,” I said, looking longingly
toward its deep shadow.
He nodded his head, and drew from the pouch in the knot in his sarong a few
broken fragments of areca nut. These he wrapped in a lemon leaf well smeared
with lime, and tucked the entire mass into the corner of his mouth.
In a moment a brilliant red juice dyed his lips, and he closed his eyes in happy
contentment, oblivious, for the time, of the sand and fallen trunks that seemed to
dance in the parching rays of the sun, oblivious, even, of the loss of his first-
born.
I was revolving in my mind whether there was any use in continuing the chase,
which I would have given up long before, had I not known that a tiger who has
eaten to repletion is both timid and lazy. This one had certainly breakfasted on a
dog or on some animal before encountering Baboo.
I had hoped that possibly the barking of the curs might have caused him to drop
the child, and make off where pursuit would be impossible; but so far we had,
after those footprints, found neither traces of Baboo alive, nor the blood which
should have been seen had the tiger killed the child.
Suddenly a long, pear-shaped mangrove-pod struck me full in the breast. I
sprang up in surprise, for I was under a cocoanut tree, and there was no
mangrove nearer than the lagoon.
A Malay looked up sleepily, and pointed toward the wide-spreading banian.
“Monkey, Tuan!”
My eyes followed the direction indicated, and could just distinguish a grinning
face among the interlacing roots at the base of the tree. So I picked up the green,
dartlike end of the pod, and took careful aim at the brown face and milk-white
teeth.