“No, it not that,” answered Kobo, in the same subdued accents. “Beasts hear elephant coming down to drink. All get out of elephant’s way. He king among them. Listen, you hear them.”
“Do you really mean it, Kobo?” asked Nick, astonished at this information. “The lions and rhinoceroses can’t really be so much afraid of the elephants as that comes to?”
“I believe it’s true,” said Frank; “I know I’ve been told so before. A lion or a rhinoceros wouldn’t mind a single elephant much, I dare say; but it’s the whole troop of ’em together that they’re afraid of. They’d run right over a lion, or a rhinoceros either, and trample the life out of them, before they knew where they were. Yes, Kobo’s right. Here they come over that low bit of hill there. What a lot! and what thundering big beasts!”
As he spoke, a dull heavy sound, like the roll of loaded waggons along a hard road was heard; and the figure of an enormous elephant emerged from the cover of the thicket, its broad flat head, huge misshapen ears, and white tusks glistening in the broad moonlight. It was followed by another, and another, each seeming to loom larger than the last, until ten of the monsters had reached the banks of the tarn, all of them males, and of the largest size.
“All bull,” whispered Kobo; “bull drink first, females wait till they done.”
While he was speaking, the elephants had advanced up to their mid-legs in the water, and dipping their trunks in, sucked up the cooling stream with a loud gurgling noise. Frank’s fingers insensibly stole to the lock of his rifle. One of the largest of the giants was now scarcely more than four or five yards from him, its figure as plainly visible in the clear cold light, as though it had been noonday. Kobo had again to lay his hand on the boy’s shoulder, and whisper in his ear, “No shoot, spoil hunt to-morrow,” or he might not have been able to resist the temptation.
Presently, however, the males had satisfied their thirst, and moving off slowly in a different direction from that by which they had approached the pond, re-entered the thicket. The cow elephants now took their places, some twenty or thirty in number, many of them with calves of various ages at their sides. There was scarcely room in the tarn for the whole herd, and before they retired, the bright and sparkling waters had become a turbid and discoloured flood. At length, however, they did retire, and before the moon had set, the last of the bulky figures had disappeared among the foliage.
“Now lie down and sleep;” said Kobo, “no more animals to-night.”
The boys complied, and lying down among the bushes which grew here and there between the masses of rocks, were soon buried in slumber. They were awakened by Kobo at daybreak; and having eaten their breakfast, and taken a dip in the tarn, which by this time had recovered its translucent clearness, announced to Kobo that they were ready to take the field.
They accompanied the Bechuana accordingly, as he proceeded cautiously to follow the track left by the herd on the previous evening, for half a mile or so through the bush. Then desiring them to climb two trees of some size, which stood on either side of the path in the heart of the woodland—an acacia and a motjeerie—he crept on alone through the shrubs, making his way as secretly and noiselessly as a snake, and soon vanished from their view.