10 rifles, which some one had reloaded; taking this, I left the
little 'Ponchy' with V. and the gun-bearers, and running down the side
of the hill, I came up with the elephant just as he was entering the
jungle, and getting the earshot, I killed him.
We had bagged nine elephants, and only one had escaped from the herd;
this was the female who had forsaken her young one.
Wallace now came up and cut off the tails of those that I had killed. I
had one barrel still loaded, and I was pushing my way through the
tangled grass towards the spot where the five elephants lay together,
when I suddenly heard Wallace shriek out, 'Look out, sir! Look out!--an
elephant's coming!'
I turned round in a moment; and close past Wallace, from the very spot
where the last dead elephant lay, came the very essence and incarnation
of a 'rogue' elephant in full charge. His trunk was thrown high in the
air, his ears were cocked, his tail stood erect above his back as stiff
as a poker, and screaming exactly like the whistle of a railway engine,
he rushed upon me through the high grass with a velocity that was
perfectly wonderful. His eyes flashed as he came on, and he had singled
me out as his victim.
I have often been in dangerous positions, but I never felt so totally
devoid of hope as I did in this instance.
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