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Updated: June 1, 2025
I felt somewhat alarmed, but Dango begged that I would allow him to apply a balsam composed of what I was told was margosse oil. The odour was as disagreeable as that of asafoetida, but not only did it keep all flies away, but it had a most healing and cooling effect, so that after the rest of another day I was able to mount my horse and proceed on our journey.
And when Taug reached a place in the branches from which he could have an unobstructed view of the clearing he saw Dango already sniffing at something directly beneath him something which Taug instantly recognized as the lifeless form of his little Gazan.
Nowell then did what I certainly should not have thought of attempting; he caught him by the tail, and pulled away with all his might, but he could as easily have moved an elephant. Dango poked him on the back with his long pole.
By degrees, the little wind there had been died away, and Dango intimated that the elephants were circling round, probably making for the lake we had before passed. This gave us fresh hope of overtaking them. On we pushed, therefore. At length we came to a point where the thick trail separated in two parts one keeping to the left, the other straight on.
I did not shout even to ask my companions to stop for me, so fully persuaded was I that I should soon come up with them. I was conscious, however, that I was not making such good way as at first, and I knew that till they brought the stag to bay, or till it dropped, they would probably outstrip me. On I went. Every moment I thought that I most overtake Nowell and Dango.
Mr Fordyce, laughing, said that he should prefer watching outside with the horses; so, accompanied by four of the most active villagers, Nowell, Dango, and I prepared to penetrate through the jungle. Our only mode of escaping the thorns was to crawl on our hands and knees, trailing our rifles after us; and to do this without the certainty of their going off, we had to secure the locks in cases.
The truth was, that the crocodile, suddenly aroused from his balmy slumbers, was far more frightened at us than we had cause to be at him, and was completely paralysed. Dango, knowing this, struck him with his long pole, when he lay perfectly still, looking to all appearance dead.
I was helped to a stream of cold water which flowed down from the mountain, and in this my thigh was bathed till the pain was somewhat assuaged. A litter was then formed of bamboos and creepers, on which the natives bore me back towards the spot where we had left the horses, while Dango led away the poor little poonchy.
His belly cried aloud in anguish and his jowls slavered for flesh. Zebra or deer or man, what mattered it so that it was warm flesh, red with the hot juices of life? Even Dango, the hyena, eater of offal, would, at the moment, have seemed a tidbit to Numa. The great lion knew the habits and frailties of man, though he never before had hunted man for food.
I followed close at his heels, and Dango and the natives followed me. It seemed extraordinary foolhardiness that a few men should have ventured to follow close on the heels of a huge monster armed with powers so prodigious as the elephant. So it would have been had it not been for those deadly little rifle balls we carried in our guns.
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