Kala Nag stood ten fair feet at the shoulders, and his tusks had been cut off short at five feet, and bound round the ends, to prevent them splitting, with bands of copper; but he could do more with those stumps than any untrained elephant could do with the real sharpened ones.
He knew what he was talking of; for he had been born under Kala Nag's shadow, had played with the end of his trunk before he could walk, had taken him down to water as soon as he could walk, and Kala Nag would no more have dreamed of disobeying his shrill little orders than he would have dreamed of killing him on that day when Big Toomai carried the little brown baby under Kala Nag's tusks, and told him to salute his master that was to be.
Lay your beast alongside, Toomai, and let him prod with his tusks. By all the Gods of the Hills, these new elephants are possessed, or else they can smell their companions in the jungle." Kala Nag hit the new elephant in the ribs and knocked the wind out of him, as Big Toomai said, "We have swept the hills of wild elephants at the last catch.
The undergrowth on either side of him ripped with a noise like torn canvas, and the saplings that he heaved away right and left with his shoulders sprang back again and banged him on the flank, and great trails of creepers, all matted together, hung from his tusks as he threw his head from side to side and plowed out his pathway.
On the ground before the door of the fetish lay six splendid tusks.
No station can show such tusks. Those traders wanted carriers badly, and our men were no good here.
"Why!" he shouted, "I believe you have sold our men for these tusks!" Makola stood impassive and silent.
Makola retired into the bosom of his family; and the tusks, left lying before the store, looked very large and valuable in the sunshine.
Deesa sat on Moti Guj's neck and gave him orders, while Moti Guj rooted up the stumps-for he owned a magnificent pair of
tusks; or pulled at the end of a rope-for he had a magnificent pair of shoulders-while Deesa kicked him behind the ears and said he was the king of elephants.
The elephant uttered a long bellow of terror and agony, then raised himself up for a moment, twirling his trunk in the air, and finally fell with all his weight upon one of his
tusks, which he broke off short.
As Horta grunted and charged, slashing the sturdy jungle patriarch with his mighty tusks until the bark flew in every direction, Tarzan dropped to the ground behind him.
Today I shall eat your heart, O Lord of the Great Tusks, that it shall keep savage that which pounds against my own ribs."
When we had loaded our elephant with as many
tusks as it could carry and were on our way back to the city, he said:
So after we were rested a little, and the Kafirs had cut out the hearts of two of the dead elephants for supper, we started homewards, very well pleased with our day's work, having made up our minds to send the bearers on the morrow to chop away the
tusks.
He even hung by one hand, tantalizingly just beyond reach, and mocked them as they gnashed their
tusks with impotent rage.
