Our Two Victims 55 



The country being fairly open, we can see well about 

 us ; but nothing is to be seen. Suddenly, we catch a 

 glimpse of a gray mass behind a bush, and find that 

 it is the first female elephant, stone dead. The two 

 bullets really reached her heart. Let us continue 

 our search. Descending into a small valley, we 

 see there, standing upright and facing the left near 

 a clump of trees, an elephant doubtless the second 

 animal. At the same moment the storm breaks and 

 the rain falls violently. My victim, which I see only 

 through a curtain of rain-drops, visibly suffers, her 

 flank swelling out abnormally and then subsiding ; she 

 is shot in the lungs. We pass round her in such a 

 way that she shall not see us approach ; but she seems 

 more taken up with her sufferings than with us, and 

 at the moment I am going to fire, she falls down on 

 the grass, still breathing. I draw near and give her 

 the coup de grdce behind the ear. Around her is a 

 large pool of blood, which the rain carries in a red 

 stream towards the bottom of the little valley. 



It is a quarter past two o'clock, and we are almost 

 fifteen miles from the camp. 1 send some men 

 with a message to Bertrand to bring everybody here 

 to-morrow during the day. By taking the shortest 

 cut he will be able to reach us about eleven o'clock. 

 When you kill large animals, instead of carrying 

 their bodies to the camp, which would need too 

 many bearers, you bring the camp to them. At the 

 present time of the year, when water is found every- 

 where, there is nothing inconvenient in that; but 

 during the dry season it is often very difficult. 



