“How could an elephant understand our wishes?” asked Dudu.
“Talk to him anyhow, perhaps he will be clever enough to understand what we want.”
Dudu laughed at his wife’s simplicity, but to please her he said, “Elephant, we have lost our way; will you carry us and take us home, and we shall be your friends for ever.”
The Elephant ceased waving his trunk, and nodding to himself, and turning to them said—
“If you come near to me and take hold of my ears, you may get on my back, and I will carry you safely.”
When the Elephant spoke, Dudu fell back from surprise, and looked at him as though he had not heard aright, but Salimba advanced with all confidence, and laid hold of one of his ears, and pulled herself up on to his back. When she was seated, she cried out, “Come, Dudu, what are you looking at? Did you not hear him say he would carry you?”
Seeing his wife smiling and comfortable on the Elephant’s back, Dudu became a little braver and moved forward slowly, when the Elephant spoke again, “Come, Dudu, be not afraid. Follow your wife, and do as she did, and then I will travel home with you quickly.”
Dudu then put aside his fears, and his surprise, and seizing the Elephant’s ear, he ascended and seated himself by his wife on the Elephant’s back.
Without another word the Elephant moved on rapidly, and the motion seemed to Dudu and Salimba most delightful. Whenever any overhanging branch was in the way, the Elephant wrenched it off, or bent it and passed on. No creek, stream, gulley, or river, stopped him, he seemed to know exactly the way he should go, as if the road he was travelling was well known to him.
When it was getting dark he stopped and asked his friends if they would not like to rest for the night, and finding that they so wished it, he stopped at a nice place by the side of the river, and they slid to the ground, Dudu first, and Salimba last. He then broke dead branches for them, out of which they made a fire, and the Elephant stayed by them, as though he was their slave.