Beneath me – as under the lion, for that matter – was golden sand, and when I looked up, a few meters away from us I saw the blue water of a lake from which a crocodile was sleepily poking its head. From the looks of it, the small ones had recovered first from the effects of the drug – or whatever it was that was going to work on us. I reached out my hand and encountered a coarse hair. “Do you think we should go down into the arena and kill the little crustaceans too – or whatever else is still alive on the ground?” asked Laura the next day, seeing that our victory was still not being taken into account by anyone. Although the water trickled from the trough into the lake, there was no doubt that the place under the pools would soon be crowded, for the lake had rather steep banks, and where I had woken up – and where it was more accessible – the crocodile was seen to be lurking.
