“But after that those men looked upon me with awe as being almost more than mortal. No mere man, they said, could have slain those three elephants alone in the night-time. I never had any further trouble with them. I believe that if I had told them to jump over a precipice and that they would take no harm, they would have believed me.
“Well, I went up and examined the bulls. Such tusks as they had I never saw and never shall see again. It took us all day to cut them out; and when they reached Delagoa Bay, as they did ultimately, though not in my keeping, the single tusk of the big bull scaled one hundred and sixty pounds, and the four other tusks averaged ninety-nine and a half pounds—a most wonderful, indeed an almost unprecedented, lot of ivory.[*] Unfortunately I was forced to saw the big tusk in two, otherwise we could not have carried it.”
[*] The largest elephant tusk of which the Editor has any certain knowledge scaled one hundred and fifty pounds.
“Oh, Quatermain, you barbarian!” I broke in here, “the idea of spoiling such a tusk! Why, I would have kept it whole if I had been obliged to drag it myself.”
“Oh yes, young man,” he answered, “it is all very well for you to talk like that, but if you had found yourself in the position which it was my privilege to occupy a few hours afterwards, it is my belief that you would have thrown the tusks away altogether and taken to your heels.”
“Oh,” said Good, “so that isn’t the end of the yarn? A very good yarn, Quatermain, by the way—I couldn’t have made up a better one myself.”
The old gentleman looked at Good severely, for it irritated him to be chaffed about his stories.
“I don’t know what you mean, Good. I don’t see that there is any comparison between a true story of adventure and the preposterous tales which you invent about ibex hanging by their horns. No, it is not the end of the story; the most exciting part is to come. But I have talked enough for to-night; and if you go on in that way, Good, it will be some time before I begin again.”
“Sorry I spoke, I’m sure,” said Good, humbly. “Let’s have a split to show that there is no ill-feeling.” And they did.