butthrough inadvertence.
But the good and prudent animal did not make angry or inadvertentmotions, but evidently was pleased and happy at the arrival of thelittle guest.
Nell gained courage gradually and finally raised her eyes upwards and,looking as though onto a high roof she asked timidly, raising herlittle hand:
"May I stroke your trunk?"
The elephant did not, indeed, understand English, but from the motionof her hand discerned at once what she wanted and shoved under her palmthe end of his trunk, which was over two yards in length.
Nell began to stroke the trunk; at first carefully with one hand,afterwards with both, and finally embraced it with both arms and huggedit with perfectly childish trust.
The elephant stepped from one foot to the other and continually gurgledfrom joy.
After a while he wound the diminutive body of the girl with his trunkand, lifting her up, began to swing her lightly right and left.
"More! More!" cried Nell, intensely amused.
And the play lasted quite a long time and afterwards the little girl,now entirely bold, invented a new one.
Finding herself on the ground, she tried to climb on the elephant'sfore legs, as on a tree, or, hiding behind them, she asked whether hecould find her. But at these frolics she observed one thing, namely,that numerous thorns were stuck in his hind legs; from these thepowerful beast could not free himself, first because he could notconveniently reach his hind legs with his trunk, and again because heevidently feared to wound the finger with which the trunk ended andwithout which he would lose his skill and cleverness. Nell was not atall aware that such thorns in the feet are a real plague to elephantsin India and still more in the African jungles composed mainly ofthorny plants. As, however, she felt sorry for the honest giant,without any thought, having squatted near his foot, she began toextract delicately at first the bigger splinters and afterwards thesmaller, at which work she did not cease to babble and assure theelephant that she would not leave a single one. He understoodexcellently what she was concerned with, and bending his legs at theknee showed in this manner that on the soles between the hoofs coveringhis toes there were also thorns which caused him still greater pain.
In the meantime Stas came from the hunt and at once asked Mea where thelittle lady was. Receiving a reply that she undoubtedly was in thetree, he was about to enter the interior of the baobab tree when atthat moment it seemed to him that he heard Nell's voice in the depth ofthe ravine. Not believing his own ears, he rushed at once to the edgeand, glancing down, was astounded. The little girl sat near the foot ofthe colossus which stood so quietly that if he did not move the trunkand ears, one would think that he was hewed out of stone.
"Nell!" Stas shouted.
And she, engaged with her work, answered merrily:
"At once! At once!"
To this the boy, who was not accustomed to hesitate in the presence ofdanger, lifted his rifle with one hand in the air and with the othergrabbed a dry liana stalk, which was stripped of its bark, and, windinghis legs about it, slid to the bottom of the ravine.
The elephant moved his ears uneasily, but at that moment Nell rose and,hugging his trunk, cried hurriedly:
"Don't be afraid, elephant! That is Stas."
Stas perceived at once that she was in no danger, but his legs yettrembled under him, his heart palpitated violently, and before herecovered from the sensation, he began to speak in a choking voice,full of grief and anger:
"Nell! Nell! How could you do this?"
And she began to explain that she did not do anything wrong, for theelephant was good and was already entirely tamed; that she wanted totake only one look at him and return, but he stopped her and began toplay with her, that he swung her very carefully, and if Stas wanted hewould swing him also.
Saying this, she took hold of the end of the trunk with one hand anddrew it to Stas, while she waved the other hand right and left, sayingat the same time to the elephant:
"Elephant! Swing Stas also."
The wise animal surmised from her gesture what she wanted of him, andStas, caught by the belt of his trousers, in one moment found himselfin mid-air. In this there was such a strange and amusing contrastbetween his still angry mien and this rocking above the earth that thelittle "Mzimu" began to laugh until the tears came, clapping all thetime her hands and shouting as before:
"More! More!"
And as it is impossible to preserve an appropriate dignity and delivera lecture on deportment at a time when one is suspended from the end ofan elephant's trunk and involuntarily goes through the motions of apendulum, the boy in the end began to laugh also. But after a certaintime, noticing that the motions of the trunk were slackening and theelephant intended to deposit him on the ground, a new idea unexpectedlyoccurred to him, and, taking advantage of the moment at which he foundhimself close to the prodigious ear, he grabbed it with both hands andin the twinkling of an eye climbed over it onto the head and sat on theelephant's neck.
"Aha!" he exclaimed from above to Nell; "let him understand that hemust obey me."
And he began to stroke the elephant's head with his palm with the mienof a ruler and master.
"Good!" cried Nell from below, "but how will you get down now?"
"That is small trouble," Stas answered.
And slinging his legs over the elephant's forehead, he entwined thetrunk with them and slid over it as if down a tree.
"That is how I come down."
After which both began to pick out the rest of the thorns from the legsof the elephant who submitted with the greatest patience.
In the meantime the first drops of rain fell; so Stas decided to escortNell to "Cracow"; but here an unexpected obstacle presented itself. Theelephant did not want to part from her and every time she attempted togo away he turned her about with his trunk and drew her towards him.The situation became disagreeable, and the merry play in view of thestubbornness of the elephant might have ended unfortunately. The boydid not know what to do as the rain became each moment heavier and adownpour threatened them. Both withdrew, indeed, somewhat towards theegress, but gradually, and the elephant followed them.
Finally Stas stood between him and Nell. He fixed his gaze upon theelephant's eyes and at the same time said to Nell in an undertone:
"Don't run, but continually draw back to the narrow passageway."
"And you, Stas?" the little maid asked.
"Draw back!" repeated Stas with emphasis, "otherwise I shall have toshoot the elephant."
The little maid, under the influence of this threat, obeyed thecommand; the more so as, having already unbounded confidence in theelephant, she was sure that under no circumstances would he do any harmto Stas.
But the boy stood about four paces from the giant, not removing hiseyes from him for a moment.
In this manner a few minutes passed; a moment full of danger followed.The ears of the elephant moved a score of times, his little eyesglittered strangely, and suddenly his trunk was raised.
Stas felt that he was turning pale.
"Death!" he thought.
But the colossus turned his trunk unexpectedly toward the brink wherehe was accustomed to see Nell and began to trumpet more mournfully thanhe had ever done before.
Stas went peacefully to the passageway and behind the rock found Nell,who did not want to return to the tree without him.
The boy had an uncontrollable desire to say to her: "See what you havedone! On account of you I might have been killed." But there was notime for reproof as the rain changed into a downpour and it wasnecessary to return as quickly as possible. Nell was drenched to theskin though Stas wrapped her in his clothing.
In the interior of the tree he ordered the negress to change Nell'sdress while he himself unleashed Saba, whom previously he had tied fromfear that in following his tracks he might scare away the game;afterwards he began to ransack all the clothing and luggage in the hopethat he might find some overlooked pinch of quinine.
But he did not fi
nd anything. Only at the bottom of the small gallipotwhich the missionary had given him in Khartum there lay a little whitepowder which would scarcely suffice for whitening the tip of a finger.He nevertheless determined to fill the gallipot with hot water and givethis gargle to Nell to drink.
Then when the downpour had passed away and the sun began to shineagain, he left the tree to look at the fish which Kali had brought. Thenegro had caught about twenty upon a line of thin wire. Most of themwere small, but there were three about a foot long, silver speckled andsurprisingly light. Mea, who was bred upon the banks of the Blue Nile,was conversant with these fishes; she said that they were good to eatand towards evening they leap very high above the water. In fact, atthe scaling and cleaning of the first it appeared that they were solight because they had big air bladders. Stas took one of them aboutthe size of an apple and brought it to show to Nell.
"Look!" he