I’ve often thought since that if we’d been quiet, and left the beast alone, he would soon have set the child down; and I’ve often thought, too, that Mr Chunder could have got the boy away if he had liked, only he did nothing but tease and irritate the elephant, which was not the best of friends with him. But you will easily understand that there was not much time for thought then.
I had been doing my best along with the others, and then stood thinking what I could be at next, when I caught Lizzy Green’s eye turned to me in an appealing, reproachful sort of way, that seemed to say as plainly as could be: “Can’t you do anything?” when all at once Measles shouts out: “’Arry, ’Arry!” and Harry Lant came up at the double, having been busy carrying arms out of the guardroom rack.
It was at one and the same moment that Harry Lant saw what was wrong, and that a cold dull chill ran through me, for I saw Lizzy clasp her hands together in a sort of thankful way, and it seemed to me then, as Harry ran up to the elephant, that he was always to be put before me, and that I was nobody, and the sooner I was out of the way the better.
All the same, though, I couldn’t help admiring the way Harry ran up to the great brute, and did what none of us could manage. I quite hated him, I know, but yet I was proud of my mate, as he went up and says something to Nabob, and the elephant stands still. “Put him down,” says Harry, pointing to the ground; and the great flesh-mountain puts the little fellow down. “Now then,” says Harry, to the horror of the ladies, “pick him up again;” and in a twinkling the great thing whips the boy up once more. “Now, bring him up to the colonel’s lady.” Well, if you’ll believe me, if the great thing didn’t follow Harry like a lamb, and carry the child up to where, half fainting, knelt poor Mrs Maine. “Now, put him down,” says Harry; and the next moment little Clive Maine—Cock Robin, as we called him—was being hugged to his mother’s breast. “Now, go down on your knees, and beg the lady’s pardon,” says Harry laughing. Down goes the elephant, and stops there, making a queer chuntering noise the while. “Says he’s very sorry, ma’am, and won’t do so no more,” says Harry, serious as a judge; and in a moment, half laughing, half crying, Mrs Maine caught hold of Harry’s hand, and kissed it, and then held it for a moment to her breast, sobbing hysterically as she did so.
“God bless you! You’re a good man,” she cried; and then she broke down altogether; and Miss Ross, and Mrs Bantem, and Lizzy got round her, and helped her in.
I could see that Harry was touched, for one of his lips shook; but he tried to keep up the fun of the thing; and turning to the elephant, he says out loud: “Now, get up, and go back to the hay; and don’t you come no more of those games, that’s all.”
The elephant got up directly, making a grunting noise as he did so.
“Why not?” says Harry, making-believe that that was what the great beast said. “Because, if you do, I’ll smash you. There!”
Officers and men, they all burst out laughing to see little Harry Lant—a chap so little that he wouldn’t have been in the regiment only that men were scarce, and the standard was very low when he listed—to see him standing shaking his fist at the great monster, one of whose legs was bigger than Harry altogether—stand shaking his fist in its face, and then take hold of the soft trunk and lead him away.
Perhaps I did, perhaps I didn’t, but I thought I caught sight of a glance passing between Lizzy Green, now at one window, and Harry, leading off the elephant; but all the same I felt that jealous of him, and to hate him so, that I could have quarrelled with him about nothing. It seemed as if he was always to come before me in everything.