“At the sight of the boa-constrictor squirming out of the smoking tree-hollow, uncoiling itself like an enormous spring, Stasch picked up Nell in his arms and started to run away.”
Nell immediately ran toward the tent and returned with a quantity of wild figs, a few of which she threw to him. He picked them up carefully and swallowed one after another. Those that fell into deep crevices he picked up by blowing into the cracks with such force that stones the size of one’s fist flew into the air along with the figs. The children showed their appreciation of these tricks by laughing and clapping their hands. Nell repeatedly brought more food, and every time she threw a fig down she maintained that he was quite tame now, and that it would be safe for her to go down to him.
“Do you see, Stasch, now we shall have a protector—for he is afraid of nothing in the wilderness, not even of a lion or a snake, or a crocodile. Besides, he is very good—and surely he ought to be fond of us.”
“If he should become tame,” said Stasch, “so that I might leave you in his care, I would not be afraid to go off hunting, for I could not find a better protector for you in the whole of Africa.”
After a while he continued:
“It is a fact that the elephants of Africa are wilder, but I have read that the Asiatic ones, for instance, have a peculiar weakness for children. In India there has never been a case of an elephant hurting a child, and when one of these animals becomes enraged, as sometimes happens, children are sent to appease it.”
“So you see, you see!”
“At any rate, you were right in preventing me from killing him.”
Thereupon Nell’s eyes shone with joy. Standing on tip-toe, she laid both hands on Stasch’s shoulders, and leaning her head back and looking into his eyes, she asked: