194 TALES OF A NOMAD. 



and required a short rest and a pull at the whisky to 

 restore my nerves to their normal condition, but the 

 confounded fellow who carried the whisky had run away 

 when I fired and the elephant began to scream. He 

 was not a Dyak but a Malay, " and behaved accord- 

 ing," as the saying goes. Some of the Dyaks went 

 off to look for him, and we soon heard them shouting in 

 the jungle. Meanwhile the corporal spent the time 

 usefully in scraping the mud off me with the blunt edge 

 of his parang. 



At last the truant returned, and, in reply to copious 

 abuse, said he had got lost in the jungle. 



We now went to the spot where I had given the 

 elephant the last two shots, and followed up the spoor. 

 There was a great deal of blood issuing from the wounds 

 behind the shoulder, for it discoloured the leaves of the 

 bushes which he brushed with his flank, and wherever 

 he had halted there was a pool of blood on the path. 



The mere fact of an elephant making halts after he 

 has been shot is a sure sign that he has been heavily hit, 

 as otherwise he will probably go fifty miles without 

 stopping. 



We spoored on and on for about four miles, the spoor 

 trending for the most part up hill. 



There was a shower of rain and, I was in a torture of 

 anxiety lest the rain should come on heavily and wash 

 out the tracks. The shower set the leeches on the qui 

 vive, and in a few minutes we were covered with them ; 

 but the excitement I was in about this magnificent 

 elephant made me heedless of the leech bites. 



At last the spoor began to descend into a very nasty, 

 dangerous-looking, thickly-bushed gully, at the foot of 

 which I could hear water running. 



