Dick had given a cry of horror, as he saw the elephant seize his friend, and his heart seemed to stand still when he saw him whirled high in the air. Tom fell into a thick and bushy tree, and there, breaking through the light foliage at the top, remained suspended in the upper boughs.
In an instant Jumbo climbed the tree, and making his way to the lad lifted him from the fork in which he was wedged, placed him on his shoulder as easily as if he had been a child, and descending the tree laid him on the ground by the side of Mr Harvey. The latter at once knelt beside him.
“Thank God, he is breathing!” he exclaimed at once. “Lift his head, Dick; open his shirt, Blacking; and give me some water out of your gourd. I trust he is only stunned; that brute was in such a hurry that he had not time to squeeze him fairly, and the tree has broken his fall. If he had come down to the ground from that height, it must have killed him.”
He sprinkled some water upon the lad’s face and chest, and to his and Dick’s delight Tom presently opened his eyes. He looked round in a surprised and half-stupid way, and then made an effort to rise, but a cry broke from him as he did so.
“Lie still, Tom,” Mr Harvey said; “you are hurt, but, I hope, not severely. Cut his shirt off, Dick; I expect some of his ribs are broken.”
Upon Mr Harvey carefully feeling Tom’s ribs, he found, as he had expected, that five of them were broken—three on one side and two on the other.
“Some of your ribs are damaged, Tom,” he said cheerfully; “but that is of no great consequence; they all seem pretty fairly in their places. Now I will bandage you tightly, so as to keep them there, and then we will carry you back to the waggons and nurse you until they grow together again; young bones soon heal, and in a week or ten days you will, I hope, be able to travel again; you had a close shave of it. I never met a more savage beast than that bull-elephant in all my experience.”