90 The Rifle and Hound in Ceylon. 



whole tangled fabric bent over me, 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 h-unk 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 en- 

 tangled 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. I saw the ponderous fore-leg 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 



