“Nell!” screamed Stasch.
Earnestly engaged in what she was doing, she answered him cheerfully:
“In a minute! In a minute!”
The boy, who was not accustomed to postpone action when in danger, picked up his rifle with one hand, while with the other he grasped a dried liana stem, twisted both legs around it, and in a second swung himself down to the level of the narrow pass.
The elephant flapped his ears uneasily, but at this instant Nell arose, put her arms around his trunk and cried hastily, “Elephant, don’t be frightened; that’s Stasch!”
Stasch at once saw that Nell was in no danger, but even then his legs shook under him and his heart beat violently. But before he recovered from his fright he mumbled in an angry but sad voice:
“Nell, Nell, how could you do that?”
She began to excuse herself, saying she had done nothing wrong after all, for the elephant was kind and quite tame now, and she had only intended to take a closer look at him and then go back, but he had detained her by playing with her and carefully swinging her, and that if Stasch liked he would swing him, too. As she spoke these words she lifted the end of his trunk with one hand, and drawing it toward Stasch, she waved the other hand from side to side, saying:
“Elephant, rock Stasch, too!”
The intelligent animal guessed from her movements what she wanted, and in a second Stasch was grasped by the belt and swung through the air. Seeing him looking so angry and at the same time swinging through the air struck her as so comical, that she laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks, and clapping her hands, she repeated as before: