We could hear them day and night inland , coming and going as the wind shifted . I rose up full before the boat , because I had never seen white-faces alive , though I knew them well -- otherwise . A naked white child kneeled by the side of the boat , and , stooping over , must needs try to trail his hands in the river . It is a pretty thing to see how a child loves running water . I had fed that day , but there was yet a little unfilled space within me . Still , it was for sport and not for food that I rose at the child 's hands . They were so clear a mark that I did not even look when I closed ; but they were so small that though my jaws rang true -- I am sure of that -- the child drew them up swiftly , unhurt . They must have passed between tooth and tooth -- those small white hands . I should have caught him cross-wise at the elbows ; but , as I said , it was only for sport and desire to see new things that I rose at all . They cried out one after another in the boat , and presently I rose again to watch them . The boat was too heavy to push over . They were only women , but he who trusts a woman will walk on duckweed in a pool , as the saying is : and by the Right and Left of Gunga , that is truth ! '' `` Once a woman gave me some dried skin from a fish , '' said the Jackal . `` I had hoped to get her baby , but horse-food is better than the kick of a horse , as the saying is . What did thy woman do ? '' `` She fired at me with a short gun of a kind I have never seen before or since . Five times , one after another '' -LRB- the Mugger must have met with an old-fashioned revolver -RRB- ; `` and I stayed open-mouthed and gaping , my head in the smoke . Never did I see such a thing . Five times , as swiftly as I wave my tail -- thus ! '' The Jackal , who had been growing more and more interested in the story , had just time to leap back as the huge tail swung by like a scythe .
`` Not before the fifth shot , '' said the XXXXX , as though he had never dreamed of stunning one of his listeners -- `` not before the fifth shot did I sink , and I rose in time to hear a boatman telling all those white women that I was most certainly dead .
Gunga Jackal Mugger Right day duckweed horse-food night scythe white-faces