222 UNDER THE AFRICAN SUN 



was something really awful and fearful, and it did shake our 

 nerves. 



The next instant my men and I were running away like mad 

 for our hves, as branches, and even trees, fell crashing, torn 

 down by the infuriated, but to us invisible, animals. Somehow 

 we escaped without encountering any. When we stopped to 

 recover our breath, our courage returned. We went back, and 

 found that the wounded elephant must have fallen down and 

 been trampled on by others, for we picked up a handful of the 

 long bristles which fringe the tip of the tail. 



There was very little blood, but we followed it up for per- 

 haps a quarter of an hour, when, in the obscurity of the bush, 

 we almost walked into the finest elephant 1 have ever seen. 

 His legs 1 had taken for tree-trunks. When they moved, I felt 

 a thrill like an electric shock ; and the eye involuntarily 

 travelled upwards to the huge body. It was a splendid chance 

 to have hamstrung this gigantic tusker and thus made abso- 

 lutely sure of him. I did not do it, but preferred the shot 

 at the head, and thus lost tusks worth fully a couple of hundred 

 pounds. As he turned his head, the intervening branches and 

 leaves made the aim very difficult. The bullet hit him behind 

 the eye, and he fell almost on top of us. 



This second shot was succeeded by such horrible screams 

 of rage and fury, that w^e became again utterly demoralised and 

 unnerved. Once more we stampeded, and such of the Wanyoro 

 natives as had accompanied me never stopped running till they 

 had reached our camp. The Soudanese stuck to me. One 

 vicious brute chased us for some distance, but was baffled by 

 the trees and the shrubs. As we doubled, he just missed us, and 

 rushed off at right angles, crashing through the underwood like 

 a steam-engine. I had to throw myself on the ground, exhausted 

 by the overpowering emotion, the rifle shaking in my trembling 

 hands. 



When sufficiently recovered, the two or three of us that 

 remained, once more went in pursuit. The fallen elephant had 

 not been killed outright, but had got away. Patches of blood 

 about the size of a plate showed that he was badly wounded. 

 He had left the herd, and had gone off by himself out of the 

 bush and towards the hills. The blood-trail was easy to follow, 

 and his head must have been drooping tow'ards the wounded 

 side, as the left-hand tusk had occasionally scraped the ground. 



