THE BLAT ELEPHANT. 199 



the famous Blat Elephant. Trying to conceal my 

 emotion, I beckoned to the men to come up, saying 

 that the animal was dead. But " dead " had barely 

 crossed my lips when there was a rending of the 

 rattans, and before I could move the elephant was 

 charging straight at me. 



A second before, it had been lying on the ground 

 with all four feet stretched out, and with, I believed, 

 a bullet in its brain. An elephant cannot spring to 

 his feet, and a tame animal generally takes some time 

 to rise. The suddenness of this charge may therefore 

 appear exaggerated : I can only say that I was stand- 

 ing within a few yards of the animal, and was not 

 aware of any interval of time between its lying silent 

 on the ground and its charging me. I saw the green 

 rattans tearing asunder to right and to left, away from 

 an enormous brown head a trunk tightly coiled up 

 and a pair of huge gleaming tusks. It was all high 

 up in the air, and right above me imminent as a 

 wave that curls before it breaks. With my second 

 barrel I fired into the centre of the enormous brown 

 chest, the head being so high and so close that it was 

 covered by the tightly coiled trunk, and then with an 

 empty rifle I turned and ran down the track up which 

 we had come. The elephant was only a few yards 

 behind me, and I ran for life. 



Before I had gone more than fifteen or twenty 

 yards I tripped and fell heavily to the ground, my 

 rifle being flung from my hand. Death seemed 

 certain, and I could only hope that it would be pain- 

 less. But, to my intense surprise, the elephant had 

 not followed me. Looking over my shoulder, I saw 



