I should like to
have stopped here, because it would have been handy for any ship
as passed; but the tide run so strong, and the rocks were so steep
on both sides, that I couldn't make a landing. Howsomdever, directly
it widened out, I managed to paddle into the back water and landed
there. Well, gents, would you believe me, if there wasn't two big
allygaters sitting there with their mouths open ready to swallow
me, canoe and all, when I came to shore."
"No, Jack, I'm afraid we can't believe that. We would if we could,
you know, but alligators are not fond of such cold weather as you'd
been having, nor do they frequent the seashore."
"Ah, but this, you see, was a straits, Master Ruthven, just a narrow
straits, and I expect the creatures took it for a river."
"No, no, Jack, we can't swallow the alligators, any more than they
could swallow you and your canoe."
"Well," the sailor said with a sigh, "I won't say no more about the
allygaters. I can't rightly recall when they came into the story.
Howsomdever, I landed, you can believe that, you know."
"Oh yes, we can quite believe, Jack, that, if you were there, in
that canoe, in that back water, with the land close ahead, you did
land.
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