AN APPALLING CATASTROPHE 



had dislodged the astonished native from his steed, and 

 mounting it himself, was galloping to the bungalow as 

 hard as the little animal could lay legs to the ground. 



" Bring the steel-tipped-bullet ones," cried the former, 

 shouting after him, for he guessed from his prompt action, 

 that G had understood him, and was off to fetch the 

 cartridges. " Pray Heaven, he may be back in time," he 

 added, looking anxiously at the elephant, which though 

 now too firmly fixed to struggle kept raising its trunk 

 continually as if to help its breathing. 



Nevertheless, it appeared to us that the fore part of 

 its body and the head seemed now to be gradually rising 

 higher while the hinder portion was, as palpably, sinking 

 lower every moment till it was completely submerged, 

 leaving the animal, to all appearances, standing half 

 erect, in which position it remained. 



There seemed now every prospect of the animal sur- 

 viving till the cartridges arrived, and thus being saved 

 the tortures of death from suffocation ; but, alas ! the fates 

 were against it, for, presently, to our horror, we saw the 

 head drop slowly forward till it reached the level of the 

 bog, then, suddenly sink into it till there was nothing 

 visible but the trunk, which protruding some two feet 

 above the surface showed by the expansion and con- 

 traction of the nostrils, % the efforts the unhappy animal 

 was making to respire. 



The strange, half -erect position the body had assumed 

 was now fully explained, for the hind-quarters of an elephant 

 being the heavier portion had been imperceptibly 

 sinking faster, while the rest, kept up for a time by the 

 density of the bog, had, according to the natural laws of 

 gravitation, finally sunk to the same level. 



Thus, with the grim irony of fate, the animal was now 

 standing on solid ground barely six inches more than its 

 own height from the surface, and yet, for all the assist- 

 ance we could render, it was as hopelessly engulfed as 

 if buried a thousand feet below the level of the bog. 



Hence, what we had feared but hoped to have averted 

 had actually come to pass, and even worse, for there 

 was now an added horror to the situation from the fact 

 of the trunk being left above the surface to feed the lungs 



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