Besides, it had brought a Durian fruit to the banks of the stream and thrown it down, so that either taste or eccentricity must have induced it to prefer the shoots.
Perhaps its digestion was out of order and it required a tonic.
Anyhow, it continued to devour a good many young shoots while our travellers were peeping at it in mute surprise through the bushes.

That they had approached so near without being observed was due to the fact that a brawling rapid flowed just there, and the mias was on the other side of the stream.

By mutual consent the men crouched to watch its proceedings.

They were not a little concerned, however, when the brute seized an overhanging bough, and, with what we may style sluggish agility, swung itself clumsily but lightly to their side of the stream.
It picked up the Durian which lay there and began to devour it.

Biting off some of the strong spikes with which that charming fruit is covered, it made a small hole in it, and then with its powerful fingers tore off the thick rind and began to enjoy a feast.
Now, with monkeys, no less than with men, there is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip, for the mias had just begun its meal, or, rather, its dessert, when a crocodile, which the professor had not observed and Nigel had mistaken for a log, suddenly opened its jaws and seized the big monkey's leg.