In Training for Sport 



109 



unmoved when the wild dogs passed by in full 

 pursuit of some luckless hind, and it was only 

 when in the distance the 

 screaming and purring of 

 a herd of wild elephants 

 startled the silence of the 

 night that he tested the 

 tethering chain, in the hope 

 that he was free to join 

 them. At the sound of the 

 rattling links the mahout, 

 aroused at once by the cries of the distant herd, 

 would come from his tent and speak to, and 

 soothe his "brother," at the same time seeing 

 that the fetters were firmly in place ; and then, 

 with the happy ease of the uncivilized, who eat 

 when hungry and sleep when weary, would sit 

 down beside his charge, smoking his " hookah " 

 and from time to time speaking in short 

 sentences which required no reply. 



In this way the weeks passed, and the 

 elephants were all fat and well as summer 

 approached. Then came a day when the 

 grasslands were burnt, when water had ceased 



