Both of them had forgotten Mugger, the crocodile, that so loves to wait in the mud of a ford.  He had seized Singhai’s foot, and had already snatched him down into the water when Warwick fired.  No living flesh can withstand the terrible, rending shock of a high-powered sporting rifle at close range.  Mugger had plates of armour, but even these could not have availed against it if he had been exposed to the fire.  As it was, several inches of water stood between, a more effective armour than a two-inch steel plate on a battleship.  Of course the shock carried through, a smashing blow that caused the reptile to release his hold on Singhai’s leg; but before the native could get to his feet he had struck again.  The next instant both men were fighting for their lives.

They fought with their hands, and Warwick fought with his rifle, and the native slashed again and again with the long knife that he carried at his belt.  To a casual glance, a crocodile is wholly incapable of quick action.  These two found him a slashing, darting, wolf-like thing, lunging with astounding speed through the muddied water, knocking them from their feet and striking at them as they fell.

The reptile was only half grown, but in the water they had none of the usual advantages that man has over the beasts with which he does battle.  Warwick could not find a target for his rifle.  But even human bodies, usually so weak, find themselves possessed of an amazing reserve strength and agility in the moment of need.  These men realized perfectly that their lives were the stakes for which they fought, and they gave every ounce of strength and energy they had.  Their aim was to hold the mugger off until they could reach the shore.

At last, by a lucky stroke, Singhai’s knife blinded one of the lurid reptile eyes.  He was prone in the water when he administered it, and it went home just as the savage teeth were snapping at his throat.  For an instant the great reptile flopped in an impotent half-circle, partly reared out of the water.  It gave Warwick a chance to shoot, a single instant in which the rifle seemed to whirl about in his arms, drive to his shoulder, and blaze in the deepening twilight.  And the shot went true.  It pierced the mugger from beneath, tearing upward through the brain.  And then the agitated waters of the ford slowly grew quiet.

The last echo of the report was dying when Singhai stretched his bleeding arms about Warwick’s body, caught up the rifle and dragged them forty feet up on the shore.  It was an effort that cost the last of his strength.  And as the stars popped out of the sky, one by one, through the gray of dusk, the two men lay silent, side by side, on the grassy bank.

Warwick was the first to regain consciousness.  At first he didn’t understand the lashing pain in his wrists, the strange numbness in one of his legs, the darkness with the great white Indian stars shining through.  Then he remembered.  And he tried to stretch his arm to the prone form beside him.