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Updated: May 26, 2025
"Now, Pete," growled Smithers, for the first notes of the bugle-call rang out. "All right. Give us my rifle, comrade. I'm off." Catching the rifle from the mahout's hand, he followed Smithers at the double; but he contrived to give one glance back at the magnificent beast upon which he had been mounted, with a strange feeling of longing for his lost seat.
But no wild animal appeared to cheer Wargrave on the long way; and as hour after hour went by his whole body ached with the strain of sitting upright without a support to his back and being jolted violently at every step of the elephant. At last they reached a clearing in the forest where stood the mahout's huts and a tall, wooden building, the peelkhana, or elephant stables.
If they once arrived there, no man could say how many of them, or if any of them, would ever be recovered. The Nerbudda River crossed their path mid-way almost at flood. If they entered that tide deep and wide and muddy state-housings of great value would be hopelessly damaged. Mitha Baba was beginning to show that she did not like the old mahout's urging but Mitha Baba was always willful.
"Now, Rajah, kneel down!" cried Peter, in the nearest approach he could recall to the Malay mahout's command; and, to his great delight, the huge beast swayed from side to side and sank upon the earth, at the same time curving his trunk towards Peter as he raised his head.
Then I made signs that I would get off, but the elephant refused to lie down, and I let myself down his unshapely shoulder by a rattan rope, till I could use the mahout's shoulders as steps. The baskets were taken off and left at a house, the elephant was turned loose in the jungle; I walked the remaining miles to Kwala Kangsa, and the driver carried my portmanteau!
But there was one man that the elephant disliked, and that was the mahout's nephew, one Piroo, who was a young elephant-driver seeking a situation a man not likely to be successful, for he was morose and lazy, and drank heavily whenever the opportunity came his way, and was very cruel to the beast he rode.
The look of fear had died out of the mahout's countenance as he turned his face to the two Englishmen, and he nodded and smiled rather pitifully, as he seemed to be feeling now that his life was going to be spared.
If it had not got hold of the mahout's leg I should not have fired." "Is there nothing to be done, Doctor? You know now what it is likely we shall have to face with the Sepoys and what it will be with me if they rise. Is there nothing you can do for me?" The Doctor shook his head. "I don't believe in Dutch courage in any case, Bathurst; certainly not in yours.
"You might or you might not; I could not wait to think about that; the tiger had struck its claws into the mahout's leg, and would have had him off the elephant in another moment. That is a first rate animal you were riding on, or he would have turned and bolted; if he had done so you and the mahout would have both been off to a certainty."
The way lay through the woods, between trees sometimes so thick that the elephants broke them down, at the mahout's word, to make way.
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