It
was impossible to follow their movements, but when next we got a clear
view the tables had turned, for the crocodile, whose head seemed to be
a mass of gore, had got the lion's body in his iron jaws just above the
hips, and was squeezing him and shaking him to and fro. For his part,
the tortured brute, roaring in agony, was clawing and biting madly
at his enemy's scaly head, and fixing his great hind claws in the
crocodile's, comparatively speaking, soft throat, ripping it open as one
would rip a glove.
Then, all of a sudden, the end came. The lion's head fell forward on the
crocodile's back, and with an awful groan he died, and the crocodile,
after standing for a minute motionless, slowly rolled over on to his
side, his jaws still fixed across the carcase of the lion, which, we
afterwards found, he had bitten almost in halves.
This duel to the death was a wonderful and a shocking sight, and one
that I suppose few men have seen--and thus it ended.
When it was all over, leaving Mahomed to keep a look out, we managed to
spend the rest of the night as quietly as the mosquitoes would allow.
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