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The Rajah's elephants were his peculiar enjoyment, and there was the same difference in their general appearance, when compared with the keddah elephants, as would be seen in a well-kept stable of hunters and a team of ordinary farm horses.
"Mael, mael, Kala Nag! Somalo! Mar! Arre! Arre! Hai! Yai! Kya-a-ah!" he would shout, and the big fight between Kala Nag and the wild elephant would sway to and fro across the Keddah, and the old elephant catchers would wipe the sweat out of their eyes, and find time to nod to Little Toomai wriggling with joy on the top of the posts. He did more than wriggle.
No time was lost in repairing to the spot with three highly-trained elephants, two of which were females; the third was a well-known fighting male, a tusker named Moota Gutche, who was usually employed to dominate the obstreperous wild elephants when refractory in the keddah enclosures. The necessary ropes and chains were prepared, and the small but experienced party started, Mr.
Another time they had tried to drive him into a horrid place called a Keddah, which had been built with stout logs, and had huge buttresses which even he would have found it difficult to move. He had been really startled one dark night on seeing huge bunches of fire coming towards him, and in spite of his daring he began to run in the opposite direction.
Then his trunk seemed to droop, and he turned, too. He could not break the line. He turned, too, toward the mouth of the keddah. But even as he turned, a brown figure darted toward him from the end of the wing. A voice known long ago was calling to him a voice that penetrated high and clear above the babble of the beaters. "Muztagh!" it was crying. "Muztagh!"
"A boy who can face a full Keddah at his age does not end in jails. See, little one, here are four annas to spend in sweetmeats because thou hast a little head under that great thatch of hair. In time thou mayest become a hunter too." Big Toomai scowled more than ever. "Remember, though, that Keddahs are not good for children to play in," Petersen Sahib went on.
Pudmini, thou hast seen him at the dance, and thou too, Kala Nag, my pearl among elephants! ahaa! Together! To Toomai of the Elephants. Barrao!" And at that last wild yell the whole line flung up their trunks till the tips touched their foreheads, and broke out into the full salute the crashing trumpet-peal that only the Viceroy of India hears, the Salaamut of the Keddah.
Ever the waving firebrands drew nearer, the beaters lessened their circle, the avenues of escape became more narrow. The yawning arms of the stockade stretched just beyond. "Will I win, jungle gods?" a little grey man at the keddah wing was whispering to the forests. "Will I save you, great one that I knew in babyhood? Will you go down into chains before the night is done? Ai!
His fellows nodded in agreement. "So to-morrow we will break camp. There can be no mistake this time. There must be no points overlooked. The chase will cost much, but it will return a hundredfold. Khusru says that at last the white one has started back toward his herd, so that all can be taken in the same keddah.
The man who stands at the end of the wings, or wide-stretching gates, of the keddah is of course in the greatest danger of being charged and killed. The herd, mad with fright, is only slightly less afraid of the spreading wings of the stockade than of the yelling, whooping beaters behind. Often they will try to break through the circle rather than enter the wings.
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