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As to the inconsiderable interval, have I the gracious permission of the Heaven-born to call up Moti Guj? Permission was granted, and, in answer to Deesa's shrill yell, the lordly tusker swung out of the shade of a clump of trees where he had been squirting dust over himself till his master should return.
Under the bow the water was hissing as from a steam jet, the air was filled with driven spray, there was a rush and rumble and long-echoing roar, and the canoe floated on the placid water of the lagoon. Moti laughed and shook the salt water from his eyes, and together they paddled in to the pounded-coral beach where Tati's grass walls through the cocoanut-palms showed golden in the setting sun.
He drew a long breath when he saw that the bungalow and the plantation were still uninjured; for he knew something of Moti Guj's temper; and reported himself with many lies and salaams. Moti Guj had gone to his pickets for breakfast. His night exercise had made him hungry.
Staring wide-eyed at the horror the way a barbarian elephant kills the Gul Moti was glad Skag did not see! . . . The mahout had managed to reach a tree in time to save his own life and was crouching on a branch, with his head buried in his arms. Nut Kut was finishing with the leader of the wild herd more mercifully than the wild was of doing it when two of the extras charged him together.
Mitha Baba's calling was just as wild as before; but it had become wild exultation. . . . They were coming up into what reminded the Gul Moti of something she had heard that the really old jungle is always dark; that the light of day never touches earth there. This was almost dark, the moon glinting through black shadows only at intervals. The sense of this place was strange.
'No, said Sunni, 'I never heard that before, Moti. 'But I say you have! Two hundred times! And look, O thoughtless one, you have gone between me and the sun, so that even now your shadow falls upon my sugar-cake my cake stuffed with almonds, which is the kind I most love, and therefore I cannot eat it. There, cried Moti, contemptuously, 'take it yourself and eat it you have no caste to break.
As Mitha Baba drove at him and Nut Kut turned his tusk ripped out sidewise. With a frantic scream he got away, running up into the jungle still screaming so far as they could hear. The Gul Moti, numb with weariness, had held on with her last ounce of strength. Now she sat amazed at her escape while a tumult of trumpeting shattered the air about her.
'Ten days, said Deesa, 'you must work and haul and root trees as Chihun here shall order you. Take up Chihun and set him on your neck! Moti Guj curled the tip of his trunk, Chihun put his foot there and was swung on to the neck. Deesa handed Chihun the heavy ankus, the iron elephant- goad. Chihun thumped Moti Guj's bald head as a paviour thumps a kerbstone. Moti Guj trumpeted.
They headed it off down the path to the Mall, and Tods went home in triumph and told his Mamma that ALL the Councillor Sahibs had been helping him to catch Moti.
Then Moti started off one early spring morning with his thick staff over his shoulder, singing gaily to himself as he walked along. In one way and another he got along very well until a hot evening when he came to a certain city where he entered the travellers' 'serai' or inn to pass the night.
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