`` Do n't care a rap , '' another voice answered ; `` he took about fifteen of my best coolies while the bridge was building , and it 's time he was put a stop to . I 've been after him in a boat for weeks . Stand by with the Martini as soon as I 've given him both barrels of this . '' `` Mind the kick , then . A double four-bore 's no joke . '' `` That 's for him to decide . Here goes ! '' There was a roar like the sound of a small cannon -LRB- the biggest sort of elephant-rifle is not very different from some artillery -RRB- , and a double streak of flame , followed by the stinging crack of a Martini , whose long bullet makes nothing of a crocodile 's plates . But the explosive bullets did the work . One of them struck just behind the Mugger 's neck , a hand 's - breadth to the left of the backbone , while the other burst a little lower down , at the beginning of the tail . In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred a mortally-wounded crocodile can scramble to deep water and get away ; but the Mugger of Mugger-Ghaut was literally broken into three pieces . He hardly moved his head before the life went out of him , and he lay as flat as the Jackal . `` Thunder and lightning ! Lightning and thunder ! '' said that miserable little beast . `` Has the thing that pulls the covered carts over the bridge tumbled at last ? '' `` It is no more than a gun , '' said the Adjutant , though his very tail-feathers quivered . `` Nothing more than a gun . He is certainly dead . Here come the white-faces . ''
The two Englishmen had hurried down from the bridge and across to the sand-bar , where they stood admiring the length of the XXXXX .
Adjutant Jackal Martini Mugger Mugger-Ghaut elephant-rifle four-bore left lightning white-faces