`` It is anything the Protector of the Poor pleases . I am HIS servant -- not the servant of the thing that crosses the river . '' `` Whatever it is , it is white-face work , '' said the Adjutant ; `` and for my own part , I would not lie out upon a place so near to it as this bar . '' `` You do not know the English as I do , '' said the Mugger . `` There was a white-face here when the bridge was built , and he would take a boat in the evenings and shuffle with his feet on the bottom-boards , and whisper : ` Is he here ? Is he there ? Bring me my gun . ' I could hear him before I could see him -- each sound that he made -- creaking and puffing and rattling his gun , up and down the river . As surely as I had picked up one of his workmen , and thus saved great expense in wood for the burning , so surely would he come down to the Ghaut , and shout in a loud voice that he would hunt me , and rid the river of me -- the Mugger of Mugger-Ghaut ! ME ! Children , I have swum under the bottom of his boat for hour after hour , and heard him fire his gun at logs ; and when I was well sure he was wearied , I have risen by his side and snapped my jaws in his face . When the bridge was finished he went away . All the English hunt in that fashion , except when they are hunted . '' `` Who hunts the white-faces ? '' yapped the Jackal excitedly . `` No one now , but I have hunted them in my time . '' `` I remember a little of that Hunting . I was young then , '' said the Adjutant , clattering his beak significantly . `` I was well established here . My village was being builded for the third time , as I remember , when my cousin , the Gavial , brought me word of rich waters above Benares .
At first I would not go , for my cousin , who is a fish-eater , does not always know the good from the bad ; but I heard my people talking in the XXXXX , and what they said made me certain . ''
Adjutant Gavial Ghaut Jackal Mugger beak evenings hour third white-face