"Kill me now," he seemed to plead. "My mate is dead, and I am blind and in pain. Put me out of my misery."
Next moment the killing had commenced. The bull never winced nor moved, and his companions trode him to death before the eyes of their human persecutors.
"Let us go back to the fort," said Duncan sadly. "A more heartrending sight I never have seen. Conal, I have shot my first and my last elephant."
When they told Frank all the sad story, he, too, agreed that elephant-shooting is not sport, but the cowardly murder of one of the most noble animals ever God placed on earth.
————
Strange to say, every day that Conal was left at the fort to do the watching and the cooking, little Lilywhite, as he now called the wee savage lassie, came to pay him a visit, her eyes all a-sparkle, her two rows alabaster teeth flashing snow-white in the sunshine.
Nor did she ever come without a fish, which she herself had caught. So tame did she become, that he could trust her to attend to the fire, for which she gathered wood, turn the fish with a wooden fork, and gather and cook the sweet-potatoes or yams.
Of course Frank chaffed Conal unmercifully about this lady-love, Lilywhite, of his.
But Conal cared nothing for that.
"You can't do less than marry her, you know," he said one day. "It would be cruel to trifle with the young lady's affections."