"It's refreshing, at any rate," thought Jack, as he shut his eyes against a fresh deluge of yellow water. "I wish to goodness I could only work myself free. I've got clear away from Saya Chone and the Strangler, and that's something to the good."
He began again to work himself about in his bonds, but he was soon obliged to desist. He was already stiff, and he soon became very sore as he struggled with his fastenings, which seemed to be eating into his very flesh.
"It's no go," he said half-aloud. "I cannot shake myself loose," and he fell back into his corner.
His elephant now came out of the river, and looked around eagerly for food. The herd of wild ones was already deep in a large bamboo thicket, and the tame one went at once after them and began to crop and munch the bamboo shoots. The wild elephants, feeding as they went, plunged farther and farther into a region of wild jungle, far from any habitations of men, and the tame one steadily followed them, bearing on his back the young Englishman, a prisoner, and forced to accompany the elephant wherever he might go.
"I've heard," thought Jack, "that these tame ones will often break away and join wild herds. I'm in a pretty desperate fix if I've got to remain lashed in this howdah while this brute rambles far and wide with this troop of companions he has hit upon."
He looked around on every side, but saw nothing that could give him the slightest cause for hope. With every step he was being carried deeper and deeper into the recesses of the jungle where no hunter dare venture, where the elephant, the tiger, and the leopard rule as undisputed masters. His plight was terrible. Who would free him, who could free him of the bonds which held him in subjection to so cruel a fate?