Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 29, 2025
Perhaps Mukna remembered at that moment all the petting he had received when he was a good elephant, all the sugar-canes and bananas and pancakes and all the rewards for being gentle and docile and obedient. And now he realized that, instead of receiving these good things, he was receiving a most terrible punishment for being wicked, and for being obstinate in wickedness. How foolish he was!
So Mukna received only sixteen blows, instead of the twenty, because he repented of his crime. "But if he had not repented?" you may ask. Then he would have received the four remaining blows later on, when he was strong enough again to receive them. For the sentence of punishment must be carried out fully, like the sentence of a court of law, unless the criminal repents. The Rogue Elephant
There they held a trial, just as in a court of law. Mukna was accused of two crimes: first, disobedience; second, attempted murder. A man was appointed to defend him at the trial, just as in a court of law a criminal may have a lawyer to defend him. The elephant master presided at the trial of Mukna. He was the judge.
But an elephant can run much faster than any man. It seemed that nothing could save those six men; they would all be trampled to death. The only direction in which they could run was toward the middle of the open space away from Mukna. Even if they reached it, they would still have to run toward the trees on the far side. Could they reach the trees in time? No! Mukna was gaining upon them.
Nothing could stop him from doing it, it seemed. He would knock them down and trample them to death. But meanwhile the elephant master had heard the trumpet Mukna had given a moment before he broke the chain. And in an instant the elephant master realized what would happen. "Run for your lives!" he shouted to the young American and the four princes. And he ran himself.
"I will do it I will do it!" he had kept saying before. So when the young American raised his hand, Mukna suddenly made up his mind to do it now! Mukna gave just one short trumpet. The next instant he gave a vicious tug with his hind leg and snapped the chain! With a huge stride he came toward the American and the royal party. He would "do it" now! He would kill them all!
Mukna's keeper had deprived him of these delicacies for his bad temper, just as a naughty boy's father may deprive the boy of ice-cream. That should have been a lesson to Mukna to be good. But it was not. Instead, he got worse. One morning, when all the elephants were working, Mukna's keeper ordered him to lift a log. Mukna did not obey. He merely stood still.
"You may hit me as much as you like, but I won't give in!" he seemed to say. At the next blow, which was the fourteenth, Mukna again fell. He was getting weaker and weaker, and now he could not stand more than one blow at a time. Seeing his weakness, the elephant master allowed him to lie there for five minutes. Then he asked Mukna, "Is it now enough?" Slowly, painfully, Mukna got up.
They came to Mukna from each side, and prodded him in the ribs with their tusks. So Mukna was forced to stand up. He steadied himself and received four more blows. Then at the next blow, which was the eleventh, he fell again. "Arise!" the elephant master commanded. Mukna again refused to arise. So the two bulls on the sides prodded him again, and forced him to arise.
As he had just ascended his throne, he wanted to teach a lesson to all criminals in his domain from the beginning of his reign, and Mukna was the first to commit a crime in the prince's reign. For, I must tell you, all elephants in service in India are treated just like men; they are rewarded as good citizens or punished as criminals. So Mukna was regarded as a criminal.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking