xxi A ROGUE ELEPHANT KILLS ALADDIN 269 



on as rapidly as possible in the track plainly taken 

 by the wounded beast. All at once, just as we were 

 in the midst of a very dense bit of thicket, the 

 elephant loomed up close to our front and with out- 

 spread ears charged straight at B., who was a 

 couple of paces away on my right. As he came 

 on he viciously flapped hs enormous ears back to 

 his sides, and just as he did this I fired full at his 

 head where it joins the trunk. Although this did 

 not knock him down, it providentially caused him 

 to swerve off a yard or two from B. in the direction 

 of Abdi, the Somali gun-bearer, who now caught 

 his eye. The terrified man made a dive for safety 

 but got caught up in the thicket, and I fully 

 expected to see him crushed to death before my 

 eyes. I tore open the breech of my rifle with 

 all the speed I could muster, wondering if I should 

 have time to get another bullet into the brute 

 before he was on the Somali. Just as his head got 

 level with me, I rammed the cartridge home, threw 

 the rifle to my shoulder and in doing so almost 

 touched his towering flank as he raced past in pursuit 

 of the gun-bearer. At the moment that he reached out 

 his trunk to dash Abdi to the ground I let him have 

 a slanting shot, which so upset him that he merely 

 knocked off the man's puggari and crashed away 

 into the bush without doing us any damage. Hardly 

 waiting for the jungle to close on him I gave 



