Nell gained courage gradually and finally raised her eyes upwards and, looking as though onto a high roof she asked timidly, raising her little hand:
"May I stroke your trunk?"
The elephant did not, indeed, understand English, but from the motion of her hand discerned at once what she wanted and shoved under her palm the end of his trunk, which was over two yards in length.
Nell began to stroke the trunk; at first carefully with one hand, afterwards with both, and finally embraced it with both arms and hugged it with perfectly childish trust.
The elephant stepped from one foot to the other and continually gurgled from joy.
After a while he wound the diminutive body of the girl with his trunk and, lifting her up, began to swing her lightly right and left.
"More! More!" cried Nell, intensely amused.
And the play lasted quite a long time and afterwards the little girl, now entirely bold, invented a new one.
Finding herself on the ground, she tried to climb on the elephant's fore legs, as on a tree, or, hiding behind them, she asked whether he could find her. But at these frolics she observed one thing, namely, that numerous thorns were stuck in his hind legs; from these the powerful beast could not free himself, first because he could not conveniently reach his hind legs with his trunk, and again because he evidently feared to wound the finger with which the trunk ended and without which he would lose his skill and cleverness. Nell was not at all aware that such thorns in the feet are a real plague to elephants in India and still more in the African jungles composed mainly of thorny plants. As, however, she felt sorry for the honest giant, without any thought, having squatted near his foot, she began to extract delicately at first the bigger splinters and afterwards the smaller, at which work she did not cease to babble and assure the elephant that she would not leave a single one. He understood excellently what she was concerned with, and bending his legs at the knee showed in this manner that on the soles between the hoofs covering his toes there were also thorns which caused him still greater pain.
In the meantime Stas came from the hunt and at once asked Mea where the little lady was. Receiving a reply that she undoubtedly was in the tree, he was about to enter the interior of the baobab tree when at that moment it seemed to him that he heard Nell's voice in the depth of the ravine. Not believing his own ears, he rushed at once to the edge and, glancing down, was astounded. The little girl sat near the foot of the colossus which stood so quietly that if he did not move the trunk and ears, one would think that he was hewed out of stone.