M now desired to be informed where we wanted to go to, and in pursuit of what game?
"Oh, elephant," said Jack. "Let's have a turn after the elephants first, Peter; don't you think so?"
I did, and remarked forthwith to M'ngulu, interrogatively, "Elephants?"
"Oh, elfunts," said M. "M'ngulu know—not here—come."
And M'ngulu took a turn to the north-east and went away with us after those elephants, up through the continent of Africa, as though he knew every clump of trees from sea to sea, and all that dwelt therein.
Wherever the elephant country may have been, we occupied a week in getting there; a week, however, which was not wasted, but which was full of adventure and delight; of days spent in stalking or tracking, and of nights luxuriously passed within the waggon under the comfortable knowledge that M'ngulu lay asleep without by the fireside with one eye open, and that if a lion or any other large beast were to move a whisker within a mile or so, M would know the reason why.
And at length one day, as we passed by a dense copse of trees whose appearance was unfamiliar to us, M remarked, "This right tree; elfunt like him not far now!" from which we inferred that we had passed into a district which produced the food beloved by the big creatures we had come to find.
Soon after this we made a camp, by M'ngulu's directions, and left the waggon under the care of the Nig, to whom we presented a rifle for use in case of accidents, and departed, all three of us, on horseback into the jungle.
Jack said that it was to be hoped no one would alarm Nig and cause him to wish to fire that rifle; for that would be a fatal moment for poor Nig, who knew no more about firearms than he did about the rule of three. Nig spoke English fairly well, and we asked him at parting what he would do if attacked by a lion? Whereupon the Kaffir seized his rifle (which was loaded), and waved it wildly about his head (with accompaniment of bad language and war dance), in a fashion that caused us to ride away in great haste over the veldt, and not to draw rein until we were well out of range of his weapon. It was on the second day after leaving camp that we saw our first elephant, and made our acquaintance for the first time with an animal actually and undoubtedly "possessed," and a pretty lively introduction it was for us!
CHAPTER XXI