第27章

Our satisfaction was great, but the delight of the elephant-catchers knew no bounds.Away they, started along the shores of the lake, hopping from root to root, skipping through the mud, which was more than a foot deep, their light forms hardly sinking in the tough surface.Anine-stone man certainly has an advantage over one of twelve in this ground; added to this, I was carrying the long two-ounce rifle of sixteen pounds, which, with ammunition, &c., made up about thirteen and a half stone, in deep stiff clay.I was literally half-way up the calf of my leg in mud at every step, while these light, naked fellows tripped like snipe over the sodden ground.Vainly I called upon them to go easily; their moment of excitement was at its full pitch, and they were soon out of sight among the trees and underwood, taking all the spare guns, except the four-ounce rifle, which, weighing twenty-one pounds, effectually prevented the bearer from leaving us behind, What added materially to the annoyance of losing the spare guns was the thoughtless character of the advance.I felt sure that these fellows would outrun the position of the elephants, which, if they had continued in a direct route, should have entered the jungle within 300 yards of our first station.

We had slipped, and plunged, and struggled over this distance, when we suddenly were checked in our advance.We had entered a small plot of deep mud and rank grass, surrounded upon all sides by dense rattan jungle.This stuff is one woven mass of hooked thorns: long tendrils, armed in the same manner, although not thicker than a whip-cord, wind themselves round the parent canes and form a jungle which even elephants dislike to enter.To man, these jungles are perfectly impervious.

Half-way to our knees in mud, we stood in this small open space of about thirty feet by twenty.Around us was an opaque screen of impenetrable jungle; the lake lay about fifty yards upon our left, behind the thick rattan.The gun-bearers were gone ahead somewhere, and were far in advance.We were at a stand-still.Leaning upon my long rifle, I stood within four feet of the wall of jungle which divided us from the lake.Isaid to B., 'The trackers are all wrong, and have gone too far.I am convinced that the elephants must have entered somewhere near this place.'

Little did I think that at that very moment they were within a few feet of us.B.was standing behind me on the opposite side of the small open, or about seven yards from the jungle.

I suddenly heard a deep guttural sound in the thick rattan within four feet of me; in the same instant the whole tangled fabric bent forward, and bursting asunder, showed the furious head of an elephant with uplifted trunk in full charge upon me!

I had barely time to cock my rifle, and the barrel almost touched him as I fired.I knew it was in vain, as his trunk was raised.B.fired his right-hand barrel at the same moment without effect from the same cause.

I jumped on one side and attempted to spring through the deep mud: it was of no use, the long grass entangled my feet, and in another instant I lay sprawling in the enraged elephant's path within a foot of him.In that moment of suspense I expected to hear the crack of my own bones as his massive foot would be upon me.It was an atom of time.I heard the crack of a gun; it was B.'s last barrel.I felt a spongy weight strike my heel, and, turning quickly heels over head, I rolled a few paces and regained my feet.That last shot had floored him just as he was upon me;the end of his trunk had fallen upon my heel.Still he was not dead, but he struck at me with his trunk as I passed round his head to give him a finisher with the four-ounce rifle, which I had snatched from our solitary gun-bearer.

My back was touching the jungle from which the rogue had just charged, and I was almost in the act of firing through the temple of the still struggling elephant, when I heard a tremendous crash in the jungle behind me similar to the first, and the savage scream of an elephant.Isaw the ponderous foreleg cleave its way through the jungle directly upon me.I threw my whole weight back against the thick rattans to avoid him, and the next moment his foot was planted within an inch of mine.

His lofty head was passing over me in full charge at B., who was unloaded, when, holding the four-ounce rifle perpendicularly, I fired exactly under his throat.I thought he would fall and crush me, but this shot was the only chance, as B.was perfectly helpless.

A dense cloud of smoke from the heavy charge of powder for the moment obscured everything.I had jumped out of the way the instant after firing.The elephant did not fall, but he had his death blow the ball had severed his jugular, and the blood poured from the wound.He stopped, but collecting his stunned energies he still blundered forward towards B.He, however, avoided him by running to one side, and the wounded brute staggered on through the jungle.We now loaded the guns;the first rogue was quite dead, and we followed in pursuit of rogue number two.We heard distant shots, and upon arriving at the spot we found the gun-bearers.They had heard the wounded elephant crushing through the jungle, and they had given him a volley just as he was crossing the river over which the herd had escaped in the morning.They described the elephant as perfectly helpless from his wound, and they imagined that he had fallen in the thick bushes on the opposite bank of the river.As I before mentioned, we could not cross the river on account of the torrent, but in a few days it subsided, and the elephant was found lying dead in the spot where they supposed he had fallen.

Thus happily ended the destruction of this notable pair; they had proved themselves all that we had heard of them, and by their cunning dodge of hiding in the thick jungle they had nearly made sure of us.We had killed three rogues that morning, and we returned to our quarters well satisfied.