Maiwa's Revenge

CHAPTER III. THE ÏTKST EOtmJX "Af ter this, as it was now midday, and I ► had killed enough meat, we marched back triumphantly to camp, where I proceeded te concoet a stew of buffalo beef and compressed vegetables. When this was done we ate the stew, and then ï had a nap. About 4 oídock, however, Gobo woke me up, and toíd me that the headman of one of Wambe's kraals had arrived to see me. I ordered him to be brought up, and presently he carne, a little, wizened, talkative old man, with a waist cloth around his middle, and a greasy, f rayed kaross made of the skins of rock rabbits over his shoulders. "I told him to sit down, and then abused Mm roundly. 'What did he mean?' I asked, 'by'Sisturbing me in this rude way? Hpw did he daré to cause a person of my quality and evident iruportance to be awakened in f order to interview his entirely contemptible BelfJ' "I spoke thus because I knew that it would produce an impression on him. Nobody except a really great man, he would arguo, wóuld dare to speak to him in that f ashion. Most savages are desperate bullios at haart, and look on insolence as a sign of power. "The old man instantly coilapsed. He was utterly overcomo, he said; his heart was split in two, and well realized the extent of his misbehavior. But the occasion was very urgent. He heard that a mighty hunter was in tho neighborhood, a beautiful white man - how beautiful he could not have imagined bad ho not seen (this to me!), and he carne to beg his assistanca The truth was that three buil elephants such as no man ever Baw had for years been the terror of their kraal, which was but a small place, a cattle kraal of the great chief Wambe's, where they lived to keep the cattle. And now, of late, these elephants had done them much damage, but last night they had destroyed a whole patch of mealie land, and he feared that if they carne back they would all starve next season for want of food. Would the tnïghty white man then be pleased to come and kill the elephants? It would be easy for him to do; oh, mofc easy! It was only necessary that he should hide himself in a tree, for three was a full moon, and then when the elephants appeared he would speak to-them with the gun, and they would f all down dead, and there would be an end of their troubling. "Of course I hemmed and hawed, and made a great favor of consenting to this prok posal, though really I was delighted to have nich a chance. One of the conditions that I made was that a messenger should at once be dispatched to Wambe, whoso kraal wa two days' journey from where I was, telling him that I proposed to come and pay my retpects to him in a few days, and to ask his formal permission to shoot in his country. Also, I intimated that I was prepared to present him with 'hongo,' that is, blackmail, aud that 1 hoped to do a little trade with him iu ivory, of which I heard he had a great quantity. This message the old gentleman promised to dispateh at once, though there was something about his manner which showed me that he was doubtful as to how it would be received. After that we struck our camp and moved on to the kraal, which we reached about an hour before sunset. This kraal was a coltection of huts surrounded byaslight thornfence; perhaps there were ten of theni in all. It was situated in a kloof of the mountain, with a rivulet flowing down it. The kloof was donsely wooded, but for some distance above the kraal it was free from bush, and here, on the rich deep ground brought down by the rivulet were the cultivated lands, in extent somewhere about twenty or twenty-five acres. On the kraal side of these lands stood a single hut which served for mealie stores, which at the moment was used as a dwelling place by an old woman, the flrst wif e of our f riend the headman. "It appears that this old lady, ha ving had gomo differenco of opinión with her husband about the extent of authority allowed to a younger and more amiable wife, had refused to dweil in the kraal any more, and by way of marking her displeasure had taken up her abode among the mealies. As the issue will show, she was, as it happened, cutting off her nose to spite her face. "Close by this hut grew a large banyan tree. A glanee at the mealie ground showed me that the old headman had not exaggerated the mischief done by the elephants to his crops, which were now getting ripe. Nearly half of thB entire patch was destroyed. The great brutes had eaten all they could and the rest they had trampled down. I went up to their spoor and started back in amazement. Never had I seen such spoor before. It was simply enormons, more especially that of one old buil, that had, so said the natives, but a single tusk. One might have used any of the footprints for a hip bath. "Havins taken stock of the position, my next step was to make arrangements for the fray. The three bulls, according to the natives, had been spoored into the dense patch of bush above the kloof. Now, it seemed to me very probable that they would return to-night to feed on the remainder of the ripening mealies. If so, there was a bright moon, and it struck me that by the exercise of a little ingenuity I might bag one or more of them without exposing myself to any risk, which, having the highest respect for the aggressiv" powers of buil elephants, was a great consideration to me. This, then, was my plan: To the right of the huts as you look up the kloof, and commanding the mealie lands, stands the banyan tree that I have mentioned. Into that banyan tree I made up my mind to go. Then if the elephants appeared I should get a shot at them. I announced my intentions to the headman of the kraal, who was delighted. 'Now,' he said, 'his people might sleep in peace. for while the mighty white hunter sat aloft like a spirit watching over the welfare of his kraal what was there to fearP "I told him that he was anungrateful brute to think of sleeping in peace while I, perched like a wounded vulture on a tree, watched for his welfare in wakeful sorrow, and once more he collapsed, and owned that my words were 'sharp but just.' "However, as I have said, confidence was completely restored, and that evening everybody in the kraal, inchiding the superannuated victim of jealonsy in the little hut where the mealie cobs were stored, went to bed with a sense of sweet security from elephants and all other animáis that prowl by night. "Por my part, I pitched my camp below the kraal; and then having procured a beam of wood from the headman - rather a rotten one, by the way- I set it across two boughs that ran out laterally from the banyan tree at a height of about twenty-five feet from the ground, in such fashion that I and another man could sit upon it with our legs hanging down, and rest ourselves with our backs against the bole of the tree. This done, I went back to the camp and had my supper. About 9 o'clock, half an hour before the moonrise, I summoned Gobo - who, thinking that he had had about enough of the delights of big game hunting for that day, did not altogether relish the job - and despite his remonstrances, gave him my eight bore to carry, 1 having the .570 express, and set out for the tree. It was very dark, but we f ound it without difficulty, though climbing it was a more complicated matter. However, at last we got up, and sat down like two little boys on a torm that is too high for them, and waited. I did not dare to smoke, becauso I remembered the rhinoceros, and feaired that the elephants might wind the tobacco if they should come my way, and this made the business more wearisome. So I feil to thinking, and wondering at the vastness of the silence. "At last the moon came up, and with it a moaning wind, at the breath of which the gilence began to whisper mysteriously. Lonely enough, in the new born light, looked the wide erpanse of mountain, plain and f orest, more like some twilight visión of a dream, some faint reflection from a fair world of peace beyond our ken, than the mere face of garish earth made silvery soft with Bleep. Indeed, had it not been for èhe fact that I was beginning to find the log on which I sat very hard, I should ibave grown quite sentimental over the beautiful sight. But I will defy anybody to become sentimental whenseated in the damp on a very rough beam of wood half wáy up a tree. So I merely made a mental note that it was a particulariy lovely night, and turned my attention to the prospect of elephants. But no elephants came, and after waitihg for another hour or so, I think that what bet ween weariness and disgust I must have dropped into a gentle dozo. Presently I awoke with a start. Gobo, who was perched close to me, but as far off as the beam would allow - for neither white man nor black like the aroma which each vows is the peculiar and disagreeabla property of the other- was faintly, very faintly, clicking his foreftnger against his thumb. I knew by this signal, a very favorIte one among native hunters and gunbearers, that he must have seen or heard something. I looked at his face, and saw that he was staring excitedly toward the dim edge of the bush beyond the deep green line of mealies. I stared too, and liïtetied. Eresently I heard a soft large sound, as though a giant were gently stretching out his hands and pre&ing back the ears of standing corn. Then came a pause, and then out into the open majestically stalked the largest lephant I ever saw or ever shall see. Heavensl what a monster he was! and how the moonlight gleamed upon his one splendid tusk - for the other waS missing- as he stood among the mealies, gently moving his enormous ears to and fro, and testing the wind with bis trunkl While I Was still marveling at his girth,and speculating upon the weigbt of that huge tusk, which I swore shduld bo my tusk before rery long, out stepped a second buil and stood beside him Ho was not quite so tall, but he seemed to me to be almost thicker set than the flrst, and even in that light I could seo that both his tusks were perfect. Another pause, and the third emerged. He was shorter than either of tho others, but higher in the shoulder than No. 2, and when I teil you that, as I afterwards learned f rom actual measurement, the smallest oL these three mighty bulls measured twelve feet one and a half inches at the shoulder, it will give you some idea oí their size. The three formed into line, and Btood stiU f or a minute, the one tusked buil gently caressing the elephant on the lef t with nis trunk. "Then they began to f eed, walking forward and slightly to the right as they gathered great bunehes of the sweet mealies and thrust them into their mouths. All this time they were more than a hundred and twenty yards away from me (this I knew because I had paced the distances from the tree to various pointe), much too f ar to allow of my attempting a shot at them in that uncertain light. They fed in a semicircle, gradually drawing round toward the hut, near my tree, in which the corn was stored and the old woman slept. "This went on for between an hour and an hour and a half, till what between excitement and hope that maketh the heart sick I got so weary that I was actually contemplating a descent from the tree and a moonligbt stalk. Such an act in ground so open would have been that of a stark staring lunatic, and that I should even have been contemplating it will show you the condition of my mind. But everything comes to him who knows how to wait, and sometimes too to him who doesn't, and so at last those elephants, or rather one of them, came to me. After they had fed their fill, which was a very large one, the noble three stood once more in line some seventy yards to the left of the hut and in the edge of the cultivated lands, or in all about eighty-five yards from where I was perched. Then at last the one with the single tusk made a peculiar rattling noise in his trunk, just as though he were blowing his nose, and without morcado began to walk deliberately towards the hut where the old woman slept. I got my rifle ready, and glanced up at the moon, only to discover that a new complication was looming in the immediate future. I have said that a wind rose with the moon. Well, the wind brought rain clouds along its track. Several light ones had already for a little while lessened the light, though without obscuring it, and now two more were coming rapidly up, both of them very black and dense, The first cloud was small and long, and the one behind big and broad. I remernber noticing that the pair of them bore a most comical resemblance to a dray drawn by a very long raw boned horse. As luck would have it, just as the elephant got within twenty-five yards or so of me, the head of the horse cloud floated over the tace of the moon, rendering it impossible for me to fire. In the faint twilight which remained, however, I could just make out the gray naass of the great brute still advancing towards the hut. Then the light went altogether, and I had to trust to my ears. I heard him fumbling with his trunk, apparently at the roof of the hut. Next came a sound as of straw being drawn out, and then for a little while there was com plete silence. The cloud began to pass. I could see the outline of the elephant; he was standing with his head right over the top of the hut. But I could net see his truok, and no wonder, for it was inside the hut. He had thrust it right through the roof, and attracted, no doubt, by the smell of the mealies, was groping about with it inside. It was growing light now, and I got my rifle ready, when suddenly there was a most awful yell, and I saw the trunk reappear, and in its mighty fold the old woman who had been sleeping in the hut. Out she came through the hole like a periwinkle on the point of a pin, still wrapped up in her blanket, and her skinny legs and arins stretched to the four points of the compass, and, as she did so, gave that most alarming screech. I really don't know who was the most frightened, she or I or the elephant. At any rate, the last was considerably startled; he had been fishing for mealies- the old woman was a mere accident, and one that greatly discomposed his nerves. He gave a sort of trumpet, and threw her away from him right in the crown of a low mimosa tree, where she stuck, shrieking like a metropolitan engine. The old buil lifted his tail, and flapping his great ears, prepared for flight. I put up my eight bore, and, aiming hastily at the point of his shoulder (for he wasbroadsideon), Ifired. The report rang out like thunder, making a thousand echoes in, the quiet huls. I saw him go down all of a.heap, as though he werestonedead. Then, alas! whether it was the kick of the heavy rifle or the exeited bump of that idiot Gobo, or both together, or merely an unhappy eoincidence, I do not know, but the rotten beam broke, and I went down too, landing flat at the foot of the tree upon a certain humble portion of the human frame. The shock was so severo that I feit as though all my teeth wereflying through the roof of mymouth; but al though I sat slightly ctunned for a few seconds, luckily for me I feil light, and was not in any way injured. ïieanwhile the elephant began to scream with fear and fury, and, attracted by bis cries, the other two came charging up. I feit for my rifle; it was not there. Then I remembered that I had rested it on a fork of the bough in order to fire, and doubtless there it remained. Üy position now was very unpleasant. I did not dare t try and climb the tree again, which, shaken as I was, would have been a task of some difficulty, because the elephants would certainly see me, and Gobo, who had clung to a bough, was still aloft wifh the other riñe. I could not run, because there was no shelter near. Under these eircumstanees I did the only thing feasible- clambered round the trunk as softly as possible, and, keeping one eye on the elephants, whispered to Gobo to bring down the rifle, and awaited the development of the situation. I knew that if the elephants did not see me, which, luckily, they were too engaged to do, they would not smell me, for I was up wind. Gobo, however, either did not, or, preferring the safety of the tree, would not hear me. He said the former, but I believed the latter, for I knew that he was not enough of a sportsman to really enjoy shooting elephants by moonlight in tho open. So there I was behind my tree, dismayed, unarmed, but highly interested, for i was witnessing a remarkable performance. "When the two other bulls arrived the wounded elephant on the ground ceased to scream, but began to make a low moaning noise and gently touch the wound near his shoulder, from which the blood was Uterally spouting out. The other two seemed to understand; at any rate, they did this: Kneeling down on either side, they got their trunks and tusks underneath him, and, aided by his own efforts, with one great lift got him on his feet. Then, leaning against him on either sido to support him, they marched off at a walk in the direction of the village. It was a pitiful sight, and even then it made me f eel a brute. "Presently from a walk, as the wounded elephant gathered himself together a littíe, they broke into a trot, and after tbat I could follow them no longer with my eyes, for the second black cloud came up over the moon The editor would have been Inclined to think tbat in relating; this incident Mr. Quatermain was making himself lnterestlng at the expense of the exact trutb, did it not happen that a similar incident has come within his own knowledge. - Edito. and put her out as an ertinguisher puts out a dip. I say with my eyes, but my ears stil! gave me a very fair notion of what was going on. When the cloud came up the three terrified animáis were heading directly for the kraal, probably because the way wa3 open and the path easy. I f ancy that they got eonf used in the darkness, for when they came to the kraal fence they did not turn aside, but crashed through it. Then there were 'times,' as the Irish servant girl says in the American book. Having taken the fence, they thought that they might as well take the huts also, so they jus1 ran right over them. One m've shaped hul was turned straight over on to its top, anc when I arrired on the scène the people who had been sleeping there were bumbling aboul inside like bees disturbed at night, while two more were crushed fiat, and a third had al its side torn out Oddly enough, however, nobody was hurt, though several people hac a narrow escape of being trodden to death. "On arrival I found the old headman in a state painfully like that favored by Greek art, dancing about in front of his ruinec abodes as vigorously as though he had just been stung by a scorpion. "I asked him what ailed him, and he burst out into a flood of abuse. He calledmea wizard, a shani, a fraud, a bringer of bad luck I had promised to kill the élephants, and 1 had so arranged things that the elephants had nearly killed him, etc. "This, still smarting, or rather aching, as I was from that most terrific bump, was too much for my feelings, so I just made a rush at my friend, and, getting him by the ear, ] banged his head against the doorway of his own hut, which was all there was left of it. " 'You wieked old scoundrel,1 1 said, 'you dare to complain about your own trilling inconveniences, when you gaye me a rotten beam to sit on, and therepy delivered me to the fury of the elephant' (bump! bump bump!), 'when your own wife' (bump!) 'has just been dragged out of her hut' (bump!) 'like a snail from its shell and thrown by the Earthsbaker into a tree' (bumpl bump!). "'Mercy, my father, mércy!' gasped the old fellow. 'Truly I have done amiss- my heart tells me so.' " 'I should hope it did, you old villain' (bump). " 'Mercy, great white man. I thought the log was sound. But what says the unequaled chief - is the old woman, my wife, indeed dead? Ah, if she is dead all may yet prove to have been for the very best;' and he clasped his hands and looked up piously to heaven, in which the moon was once more ehining brightly. "I let go his ear and burst out laughing, the whole scène and his devout aspirations for the decease of the partner of his joys, or rather wees, were so intensely ridiculous. " 'No, you old iniquity,' I answered; 'I left her in the top of a thorn tree, screaming like a thousand bluejays. The elephant put her there.' " 'Alas! alas!' he said, 'surely the back of the ox is shaped to the burden. Doubtless, my father, she wül come down when she is tired;' and without troubling himself further about the matter he began to blow at the smoldering embers of the fire. "And, as a matter of fact, she did appear a few minutes later, considerably scratched and startled, but none the worse. "After that I made my way to my little camp, which, fortunately, the élephants had not walked over, and, wrapping myself up in a blanket, was soon fast asleep. "And so ended my flrst round with those three élephants. [TO BE 0OXTIXÜED.] Every man hopes for better dajs. So does the gambler.-