But the _mugger_ is there, and I don't know why he did not seize one of you!" In the center of the pool there was a rockery, for the benefit of plant-roots and breeding fish.

I walked around it to look, and there, sure enough, lay a brute about twenty feet long, snoozing with his chin on a corner of the rock.

I picked up a pole to prod him and he snapped and broke it, coming close to the edge to clatter his jaws at me.
Prodding him a last time, I turned round to look for the Mahatma.

He had vanished--gone as utterly and silently as a myth.

King had not seen him go.