162 SPORT, TRAVEL, AND ADVENTURE 



he could do me any harm, and the moment that it took 

 him to do this was his last, for a bullet from the 

 faithful '450 laid him low. His trunk when stretched 

 out actually reached to the foot of the little tree up 

 which I had been perched. All of a tremble with the 

 excitement of the moment, I climbed on to my fallen 

 foe's head and shouted for my gun-bearer, and 

 presently, as it seemed from my very feet, he wriggled 

 forth, for there, but a few feet from the fallen monster, 

 he had concealed himself in the soft mud and lay 

 completely buried in the grass. He stood before me 

 a mass of mud from head to foot, with a weird, scared 

 look, unspeakably funny, on his face. We sat down 

 and looked at each other, wondering how in the name 

 of all that is wonderful we two little pigmies should 

 be safe and well, while two colossal beasts with a 

 thousand times our strength lay within a few feet of 

 each other stone dead. We could not talk for a long 

 time, and then my gun-bearer just said, ' Kuloka * 

 (' Congratulations ') ; and this broke the spell, and we 

 both burst into one long fit of laughter. 



Now, what about the porters? I asked the gun- 

 bearer if he knew, and he said, ' Oh, they have gone, 

 and the third elephant after them.' I knew that, for 

 I saw them go ; but we felt we must not waste time 

 as evening was coming on apace, so we called loudly 

 for them, and after a little while one by one they 

 came up, all from different quarters, they having spread 

 out most wisely when the elephant gave chase. Two 

 of them had been knocked over by it, I found, but 

 only a few bruises were the result, for finding there 

 were so many of them, the elephant had made off 

 and left them in security." 



