The excitement was now intense, and the spectators were perfectly silent. The soldiers expected great things from their champion, to whom every trick and strategy of the art of fencing was known, and the Tamby family were even more confident concerning their gigantic representative.
The fencing-master went to work very warily at first. He wanted to learn the extent of his novel antagonist's skill, and he circled about in front of him, making dexterous passes and deceiving feints with such rapidity that they could scarcely be followed by the human eye.
But the little black beads that twinkled in Nalla's huge head were not to be misled. Wherever Master Deschamps' foil flashed there was the elephant's ready to meet it, and the air rang with the sound of steel striking steel while the spectators watched the strange struggle breathlessly.
At last the man grew angry. It seemed absurd to be thus bettered at his own speciality by a mere animal however big. He darted this way and that, lunging fiercely, if not recklessly. He resorted even to devices that were not considered "good form" in the fencing-hall. But they were all alike in vain. Nalla, without stirring a foot, simply by waving his trunk with the foil firmly held in the end, parried every attack and remained untouched.
Then Abel whispered to him the single word "Now," and at once he changed his tactics. Hitherto he had been on the defense. Now he took up the attack. The foil fairly whistled through the air with the rapidity of his movements. Again and yet again the button touched the tunic of the fencing-master, not roughly, but with just sufficient force that there should be no mistake.
Despite the discomfiture of their champion the soldiers broke forth into roars of applause. Nalla had won their hearts by his superb and placid dignity. He was the finest beast they had ever seen, and they did not grudge him his victory.
But Master Deschamps did not take it in equally good part. He felt bitterly humiliated. His face grew crimson with rage. His eyes glowed like burning coals, and at last forgetting himself in his fury he gave an inarticulate hoarse cry, and rushed at the elephant brandishing his foil with the evident intention of using it, not in the proper way, but as a whip wherewith to smite his successful antagonist.