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Kala had not once come to earth with her little adopted babe, but now Kerchak called to her to descend with the rest, and as there was no note of anger in his voice she dropped lightly from branch to branch and joined the others on their homeward march.
Two hours later, as Petersen Sahib was eating early breakfast, his elephants, who had been double chained that night, began to trumpet, and Pudmini, mired to the shoulders, with Kala Nag, very footsore, shambled into the camp.
Kala Nag did not answer to the order by gurgling, as he usually did. He stood still, looking out across the moonlight, his head a little raised and his ears spread like fans, up to the great folds of the Garo hills. "Tend to him if he grows restless in the night," said Big Toomai to Little Toomai, and he went into the hut and slept.
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.
Poor woman," he murmured sadly. With deep reverence and solemnity the bodies of the late Lord and Lady Greystoke were buried beside their little African cabin, and between them was placed the tiny skeleton of the baby of Kala, the ape. As Mr. Philander was placing the frail bones of the infant in a bit of sail cloth, he examined the skull minutely.
It was a penetrating silence before the voice of Ian Deal: "You two what in God's name " That was all of words. His black Arab, Kala Khan, had come to halt twice a lance-length from the tusker. Carlin and Skag and Nels stood half the circle away from the man and mount, a little farther from the still beast, the red right eye of which made the central point of the whole tableau.
Now, gentlemen, we will try the speed of your limbs;" and out of the house we sallied, and stood in the driving storm for a few minutes, completely blinded by the sudden transition from light to pitchy darkness. "Follow Kala," muttered the native; but the request was an impossibility, because Kala was invisible even a foot from where we stood.
"You're the best of them all to-day." He laughed. Nels looked up at him in a bored way, but he still held. Skag went back to Carlin. Ian Deal had partly risen. The American did not catch his eye, and now Kala Khan stood between them, Carlin still holding the rein. Skag's hand rested upon the wet trembling withers, where the saddle had covered. There was a blue glisten to the moisture.
Thirty Kashthas would make what is called a Kala. Thirty Kalas, with the tenth part of a Kala added, make what is known as a Muhurta. Thirty Muhurtas make up one day and night. Thirty days and nights are called a month, and twelve months are called a year. The sun makes the day and the night for the world of man.
A tree was creaking and groaning somewhere near him. He put out his arm and felt the bark, but Kala Nag moved forward, still tramping, and he could not tell where he was in the clearing. There was no sound from the elephants, except once, when two or three little calves squeaked together. Then he heard a thump and a shuffle, and the booming went on.