They fired their last remaining cartridge.
The elephant stopped, appeared to waver for an instant, and then resumed his course.
CHAPTER XI.
When, a quarter of an hour previously, the first elephant had been seen to fall, and the second, bent on vengeance, had continued his work of uprooting the tree, MM. Périères and de Morin had imperatively ordered their companions to take to flight, and scatter themselves in the forest or the clearing. The Arab interpreter and the Dinka soldiers obeyed him; as for Joseph, he had anticipated his master's orders. M. Delange was desirous of remaining with his friends, but he had been made to understand that, as he was rather a bad shot, his rifle would be of more use in the hands of M. Périères or M. de Morin. In addition to this, if he refused to take himself off. Miss Beatrice Poles, who for the time being appeared inclined to exhibit a marked preference for him, would be loth to leave him, and it was necessary to get rid of her. This coquettish Englishwoman had, in order to make a startling impression on the colour-loving blacks, for some days past endued herself in a skirt of brilliant red, to which, by way of contrast, she had added the bluest of blue veils, and as the African elephant, like the bull of Spain, is driven wild with rage by garments of too vivid a hue, M. Delange, at the earnest request of his friends, and for the common safety, including that of the intrepid Miss Poles herself, withdrew with her to a convenient distance.
Madame de Guéran alone declined positively to seek safety in flight, and expressed her determination to share the fate of MM. de Morin and Périères. She maintained that she had no right to leave them in the hour of danger, and she affected to believe, with some show of reason, that they would defend themselves all the better if they had at the same time to protect her.
Consequently Madame de Guéran and her two friends, alone, were exposed to the elephant's attack. Notwithstanding his numerous wounds, the animal came impetuously on, and his strength did not appear to be failing him. As for his rage, it knew no bounds.
MM. de Morin and Périères, as we have already said, had fired away their last cartridge, and all they had to do now, as the time for flight was past and gone, was to await the onslaught of the elephant, as calmly as they could, trusting to their hunting knives to rid them of their assailant.
Laura de Guéran, whom they had placed between them, stood motionless and calm, her mouth half open, and her eyes fixed firmly on the advancing foe. She was marvellously lovely at that moment, and her two champions, in spite of the fact that death was staring them in the face, could not help looking at her with admiration. They seemed as if they were enjoying the prospect of dying by the side of her they loved, hand in hand, their eyes fixed on her's, joined to her in death.
The elephant rushed straight on, without wavering or deviating from his course, and already his three victims were flecked with the blood which he tossed into the air with his trunk, and which fell like rain drops in front of him. He no longer appeared to their affrighted eyes to belong to this world. He was some nameless monster, some supernatural mammoth, against whom mortals could not contend.
Suddenly the ground shook beneath them, as if struck by an enormous mass of rock which, loosened from a neighbouring mountain, had rolled impetuously down and buried itself at their feet.