"If he puts his ears forward and drops his trunk—fire! For he'll either charge or run away," whispered Varian.
And with the graceful courtesy of his race, he handed me the miniature cannon.
We were within twelve yards or so of the huge beast when his ears jutted forward, and with his trunk he flicked the ground, producing a hollow sound. I braced a leg backwards, and with a strong effort, hove the gun to my shoulder, aimed at the wrinkles just above the trunk, and fired. The elephant and I toppled over at the same moment. I thought my shoulder was broken to pieces; but as I staggered to my feet, I saw the elephant lying over on its side, its legs feebly waving. Varian ran up to it and fired several more shots into its head, and it lay motionless.
In 1874, I was appointed to the Bellerophon, temporarily. She had sunk a steamer which had crossed her bows, and her senior officers had been ordered home to attend the inquiry into the matter. When I joined her, my old mess-mate in the Marlborough, Swinton C. Holland (now admiral), was in sole command; although he was only second lieutenant of the ship; a curious illustration of the incidents of naval life.
Another example of the anomalies of those days was my own position: I was on full pay and on active service, and I was also a member of Parliament. The dual capacity was not in itself conducive to discipline, because it gave naval officers on full pay the opportunity of criticising, as members of Parliament, their superior officers. I do not think it was abused; in my own case, I think the solitary advantage I took was to obtain a pump, which was a sanitary necessity, for the Thunderer, when I was her commander: a threat of publicity moving the Admiralty to action which previous applications had failed to produce. In the old days, the Sea Lords used to serve in the dual capacity of members of the Board of Admiralty and of Parliament.
As no one had any precise idea where the Bellerophon was, I took passage to Halifax and stayed in the receiving hulk Pyramus, fifth-rate, stationed at Halifax, in the hope that the Bellerophon would come north. In the meantime, I went for a shooting expedition with a trapper. We went up into the forests of Nova Scotia, camping out, and living upon what we could secure with our guns. We shot bear and deer and prairie chicken. In the depth of the forest I found an Irishman dwelling in a clearing with his wife and family. He was a bitter Orangeman, who (so he told me) had been expatriated for shooting at a priest.
"I had a gun," said he, "but it was a rotten gun. I drew a bead on the priest, and, God forgive me, the gun missed fire!"
I remember saying to him:
"Why the devil can't you leave another man's religious convictions alone? He has as much right to his convictions as you have to yours. If there were no religious wrangles in our country, it would be the happiest country in the world."
His nearest neighbour, dwelling 20 miles away, was a Roman Catholic; and although my friend cursed him for a Papist, their relations with each other were quite friendly. The Irishman told me how he had once fought to save the life of his child from a bear. He was working in the clearing; near by, his little girl was sitting on the trunk of a felled tree; when a bear suddenly emerged from the forest, and made towards her. The man had for his only weapon a huge handspike, as big as a paviour's rammer. He showed me the thing; it was so heavy that I could scarcely realise that he could have used it as he did use it. But with this formidable club he fought the bear for an hour. Several times he beat the animal to the earth; but the beast returned to the attack; and the man thought his strength must surely fail him. At last, both man and beast were so exhausted that they stood and looked at each other with their tongues hanging out. Then, with a growl, the bear turned tail and rolled back into the forest. The Irishman never saw it again; and he cherished the belief that the brute died of its wounds.