Third Day. 145 



stood still in the centre of the corral collected into a 

 terrified and motionless group. The fires were then re- 

 lighted, the guards redoubled by the addition of the 

 beaters, who were now relieved from the duty of watching 

 in the forest, and the spectators retired to their bungalows 

 for the night. 



The business of the third day began by noosing and 

 tying up the new captives, and the first sought out was 

 their magnificent leader. Siribeddi and the tame tusker 

 having forced themselves on either side of her, a boy in 

 the service of the rata-mahat-meya succeeded in attach- 

 ing a rope to her hind-foot. Siribeddi moved off, but 

 feeling her strength insufficient to drag the reluctant 

 prize, she went down on her fore-knees, so as to add the 

 full weight of her body to the pull. The tusker, seeing 

 her difficulty, placed himself in front of the prisoner, and 

 forced her backwards, step by step, till his companion 

 brought her fairly up to the tree, and wound the rope 

 round the stem. Though overpowered by fear, she 

 showed the fullest sense of the nature of the danger she 

 had to apprehend. She kept her head turned towards 

 the noosers, and tried to step in advance of the decoys ; 

 in spite of all their efforts, she tore off" the first noose 

 from her fore-leg, and placing it under her foot, snapped ■ 

 it into fathom lengths. When finally secured, her writh- 

 ings were extraordinary. She doubled in her head under 

 her chest, till she lay as round as a hedgehog, and rising 

 again, stood on her fore-feet, and lifting her hind-feet off" 

 the ground^ she wrung them from side to side, till the 

 great tree above her trembled in every branch. 



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