You might have seen then how quickly the looks of indifference were changed into one of exciting interest, how eyes danced gladly, and sparkled at the joyful news; how Kalulu’s hunter-soul kindled into raptures, and how Moto and Simba looked significantly at one another, and how Selim even felt a throb and a warm glow stealing over him.
Moto advanced to Kalulu, and reminded him of the advice given by Soltali to hunt one at a time, and said that while he and his warriors should single out one, it would be better that those armed with guns, viz., he and Simba, and Selim, should engage another, and so kill two. Kalulu at once acceded to the proposal.
The hunters, as soon as they got outside of the boma or camp, deployed in a long line, while Selim, Moto, and Simba stole quietly and quickly away on their own venture, in a direction considerably to the left of the Watuta hunters. All the natives had denuded themselves entirely; Selim and his two friends had but girded their cloths about their loins.
The natives thus deployed, and ready at a signal, moved forward silently, and soon they were joined by the four remaining scouts, who, ensconced behind the bushes, had continued to watch the elephants, who were seen slaking their thirst at a pool, and playfully tossing the water over their backs.
As the hunters emerged from this jungle into the cleared space near the pool, the elephants turned short round to look at the strange intruders, who were thus boldly appearing in their presence.
The hunters stopped also with one accord to survey the ponderous animals they had come to kill. What a sight this was! Ten such noble beasts, clothed with bluish-grey hides, with uplifted trunks, and great ears standing out straight in array before those fifty naked pigmies, who, had they not their sharp spears and their barbed arrows, would no more have dared to approach these magnificent creatures than they would have climbed up to the highest tree and jumped off, expecting to be able to fly.
They stood thus a minute opposed to each other; then Kalulu advanced to the front in the absence of the magic doctor, as the chief hunter, and with uplifted spear in hand, chanted the death-song of the elephant he chose should be killed. This was a picture also worthy of a great artist—the warriors in the foreground, the slight and nude form of the young chief in the centre, with his ostrich plumes waving above his head, as his body oscillated from side to side while he sang; and fronting him, about thirty feet off, a monster elephant, with his herd behind him, all looking astonished at the scene.
The words ran after this fashion:—
“Thou monarch of beasts, thou king of the woods,
Thou dangerous beast in thy angry moods,
Thou elephant strong, thou form of great might,
Behold Kalulu before thee for fight!
I’ve come from the green groves of Liemba,
From the country of old Loralamba,
With magic from Soltali Mganga (Magic Doctor),
The surest and best of his Uganga (Magic Medicine).
Then look at that sun, look at the pool
In which thou didst revel, and think so cool;
Look on that forest, and look on this grass.
The sweetest and best of this wide morass;
No more shalt thou see the sun or the pool,
No more shalt thou revel in waters cool,
No more shalt thou walk in the forest’s shade,
No more shalt thou delight in forest glade,
No more shalt thou daintily feed on the grass
Of the plain, or jungle, or this morass!
Soltali the Mganga cannot lie:
Young Kalulu is here! prepare to die!”