And with a final word of caution against cobras he led the way, swinging a lantern with no more suggestion of anything unusual than if he had been our servant seeing us home on a dark night.
He even offered to take us through the cobra tunnel, but an acting deputy high commissioner turned on a flashlight and showed those goose-neck heads all bobbing in the dark, and that put an end to all talk of that venture, although the priest was cross-examined as to his willingness to go down there, and said he was certainly willing, and everybody voted that "deuced remarkable," but "didn't believe the beggar" nevertheless.
He showed us the "Pool of Terrors," filled with sacred alligators that he assured us were fed on goats provided by the superstitious townsfolk.
He said that they were so tame that they would not attack a man, and offered to prove it by walking in.

Since that entailed no risk to the committee they permitted him to do it, and he walked alone across the causeway that had given King and me such trouble a few nights before.
Far from attacking him, the alligators turned their backs and swam away.
The committee waxed scornful and made numbers of jokes about King and me of a sort that a man doesn't listen to meekly is a rule.

So I urged the committee to try the same trick, and they all refused.

Then a rather bright notion occurred to me, and I stepped in myself, treading gingerly along the underwater causeway.

And I was hardly in the water before the brutes all turned and came hurrying back--which took a little of the steam out of that committee of investigation.