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Trembling and restive the ordinary khedda elephants showed every symptom of alarm; but the fighters stood still, with the exception of Chand, who, becoming inflated with the spirit of war, made a sudden dash up the valley, intent on accepting the challenge! Fifty yards were passed before his mahowt, with voice, limb, and prod managed to reduce the well-trained warrior to obedience.
After the brute had exhausted itself somewhat by rushing about, the mahowt did succeed in recovering control so far as to persuade him to move to his standing-place, which was not far distant, and to our great relief he sat down in the usual way. The Bulrampore men were as good as their word. Smart hands every one, they ran up with ropes and commenced tying up his hind legs.
"Of course the thought of turning out the big fighting elephants to master him occurred to every one; but even here there would be risk, for these gladiators would not rest content without knocking Mowla Buksh off his legs, in which case the mahowt would assuredly be killed.
When this deed was done, Mowlah Buksh seemed to feel that, having lost his character, he might as well go on in his course of mischief. He became wild with fury, and kept throwing his head back in a vain endeavour to seize his mahowt with his trunk and kill him also. In this effort he failed. The mahowt, though old, was active and strong.
I was just moving off, after seeing this female secured, when a tremendous shouting attracted me. It was a party chasing a fine young tusker. He was very cunning, and ran about, dodging hither and thither, taking advantage of every tree and bush and inequality, while the mahowts failed again and again to noose him. I made my mahowt drive our animal so as to turn him back.
Besides, our Director chanced to be in the forest at the time, and no one else seemed ready to take the responsibility of ordering them out. "When I came up to the musketeers, I saw the elephant rushing wildly about, trying to find a way through them, with the old mahowt sticking to his back like a burr.
Nothing in the forests had yet been found which could stand before his onset. And when we saw him stalk solemnly into camp with his mahowt, or guide, looking like a small monkey on his great neck, and remembered his fame as a fighter and his eager thirst at all times for battle, we felt that the keystone had been put to the arch of our arrangements.
"A big tusker, named Mowla Buksh, was being taken by his mahowt to drink and bathe, according to custom, when it was observed that the elephant seemed to be out of temper. Just then one of the fodder-cutters chanced to pass by. "`Keep out of his way, cried the mahowt, in a warning tone. `There's something wrong with him to-day. I won't bathe him, I think.
"I ordered my mahowt to keep near one of the noosemen, whom I knew to be expert in the use of the giant-lasso. His name was Ramjee. Both Ramjee and his driver were screaming and yelling at the pitch of their voices, and the latter was applying his mungri with tremendous energy. The elephant they were after was a small female.
Indeed, Chand ordered himself to the front, for no sooner did he hear the challenge of the tusker, than he dashed forward alone to accept it, and his mahowt found it almost impossible to restrain him. Fortunately the jungle helped the mahowt by hiding the tusker from view.
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