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Updated: April 30, 2025
"It is no use, Sahib," said the mahout, "to try and cheat one so wise as he, and yet folks say that we mahouts keep our families on the elephants' food, which words are base lies, for is he not more precious to me than many children?" Then the mahout drew out an extra chapatie he had hidden in his clothes. "Oh!
When the mahout or driver wants the elephant to do something, he jabs one of the goads into his hide sometimes one and sometimes the other, and at different places on the neck, under the ears, and on top of the head, and somehow or another the elephant understands what a jab in a particular place means and obeys cheerfully like the great, good-natured beast that he is.
He's the only kind of mahout who ever gets pay for himself." "How's that?" "It's what makes the elephant-military a proper department. Only elephant names on the books; the pay goes to them. The mahout is always an elephant's servant; he eats from his master, of course. From the outside it saves a lot of trouble, to be sure." Skag laughed.
Shot through the brain the tiger dropped back to the ground with a heavy thud and fell dead beside the staunch elephant which had never moved all through the terrible ordeal. A cry of relief and a prayer to Allah burst from the grey-bearded Mahommedan mahout, as he straightened himself; and Wargrave turned with glowing face and outstretched hand to the girl. "Oh, well done!
On reaching the foot of the descent the mahout guided the animal to the left, and, avoiding the busy streets of the town, directed its course towards the more quiet roads of the opulent quarter of Megara. The cries of the people at the approach of the elephant preceded its course, and all took refuge in gardens or houses.
He glanced moodily round, noted the guards patrolling the boundaries of their secluded camp, the mahout sleeping in the shadow of the elephant; and then he looked down at Kathlyn. Only a bit of her forehead was exposed. One brown shapely hand clutched the howdah blanket. A patch of moonshine touched her temple.
But sometimes the mahout goes to his dinner, or absents himself for some other reason, and, before he leaves, addresses a few parting injunctions to the elephant to continue his exertions. And at first the animal does so, but not for long does he proceed with his work at the same pace as he did when the mahout was present. He soon begins sensibly to relax.
I have seen a mahout swept clean off the elephant's back by these tenacious creepers, and the elephants themselves are sometimes unable to break through the tangle of sinewy, lithe cords, which drape the huge forest trees, hanging in slender festoons from every branch.
The mahout bores into the back of his head with a great iron prod and you wonder at his temerity and at the elephant's patience, and you think that perhaps the patience will not last; but it does, and nothing happens.
Maharaj slowly took up a chapatie in his trunk, carefully weighed it and put it on one side, took up another and did the same. The fourth chapatie was the light one; this he found out at once and indignantly threw it at the feet of the mahout, grumbling and gurgling and swinging his head from side to side and stamping his forefoot in anger.
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