“Only one man—the mahout, in a turban.”
“Oh, him! That little, squatty driver! I can finish him off with one on the nose.”
“No; I think—yes, it is the mahout who rode into camp at the review.”
“What! him, sir? That’s Rajah’s own mahout—I mean, Rajah’s his helephant. That’s why he stopped. Phee—ew!” whistled the lad. “Why, he’s a friend of mine. I say, sir, we are not so bad off as I thought.”
“You’ve met him before, then, Pete?”
“Course I did, sir—day of the sham-fight. But I didn’t know he was up yonder. He must have been there all the time, though he didn’t show up. That little, squatty chap used to do all the work of taking the helephants to water, while he stopped back, too big to do any of that dirty work, and ready to ride when he was wanted.”
It seemed plain enough now that when the big elephant was missing, his mahout had come in search of the huge brute himself, and directly after the small elephant he was now riding bore him close up, butting its head against Rajah’s hind-quarters and uttering a squealing, muttering sound, while, without turning his head, Rajah seemed to answer, and went on breaking off succulent boughs of leafage, to go on munching as if quite content.
But, heard directly above the gruntings and mutterings of the two elephants, the fierce-looking little mahout raised himself as high as he could in his seat and burst into a furious tirade in his own tongue, not a word of which could be grasped by his hearers, but its general tenor seemed to be a series of angry questions as to how dare these two English infidels take away his elephant, and bidding them get down directly.
“Can you understand all that, Mister Archie?” said Peter as the man paused to take breath.
“No,” was the reply. “Can you?”