“Don’t think about it, sir. It will soon pass off,” cried Peter without turning his head, and then muttering, “Think of me talking to the poor fellow like that!—Now then, go ahead, Rajah! Best leg foremost, old man. Headquarters, please; and I hope you know the way, for I’m blest if I do. All I know is that I don’t want to see that little chap again for him to go and fetch some of them guards.”
The elephant slowly shuffled along for the next ten minutes or so, before the first difficulty that presented itself to the amateur mahout appeared in front; for after they had pursued the regular elephant-path beyond the clearing for some little time, there in front was a dividing of the road, and upon reaching this the elephant stopped as if in doubt, and began slowly swinging his head, ending by planting the basket he carried upon the earth and helping himself to another of the coarse melons.
“Which way?” growled Peter, as he looked down each path in turn, the one being fairly trampled, but green with the shoots of the cane; the other showing the regular holes, and being wet and muddy in the extreme.
“All right,” thought the lad. “That must be the way down to the river where t’others have gone for their bath. Right!” he cried, as the elephant raised the basket again and inclined his head slowly as if to follow the muddy path, from some distance down which came the grunting of the other elephants, when, in his excitement, Peter uttered a savage “Yah-h!”
This did as well as the purest Malay order meaning to the left, for the elephant turned his head in the other direction at once, and then planting his great feet carefully in the fairly dry holes, he began to follow the greener path.
Squash—suck—squash—suck, on and on through the forest shades, and as the boughs of the jungle trees hung over here and there lower and lower in the great tunnel of greenery, so cramped in size that there seemed to be only just room for the elephant to pass along, Peter kept on looking back nervously, half-expecting to see his companion swept away from his precarious perch.