Jack Haydon's Quest

by John Finnemore

It was within an hour or two of dark, and Jack, faint with hunger and the strange and exhausting experience through which he had gone that day, was hanging listlessly in his bonds. The elephants had gathered in an open stretch at the foot of a deep ravine, and all was very quiet. The pad-elephant stood with his trunk gently swinging, his huge ears slowly flapping; he had eaten and drunk, and now he was taking a rest.

Suddenly into the silence of the narrow valley there fell the sound of blows. Thud—thud—thud. A pause. Thud—thud—thud, again and again. Jack started and listened eagerly. There was a ring about the sound which told him what it was.

"It's the sound of an axe on a tree," cried Jack to himself, and he knew that other human beings were in the neighbourhood. He collected all his breath and gave a loud shout. Again and again he shouted. The noise on the hill-side far above was now stilled, and once more Jack roared at the top of his voice.

At the next moment his outcries were drowned in the wild trumpeting of the elephants. The human notes had disturbed them, and they trumpeted shrilly and moved uneasily away from the neighbourhood of the pad-elephant. Then the wild herd set off at a trot, went a mile or more up the ravine, and came to a halt near another feeding-place, a clump of young bamboos. The tame elephant with its burden had followed steadily, and now Jack shouted no more. He feared lest his cries should disturb the herd so much that the wild creatures should take flight, and run a great distance. If they did so, the pad-elephant would be sure to follow them, and thus very possibly carry Jack completely out of reach of the human beings, whoever they were, that he had heard at work among the trees high up on the bank of the ravine.

So now Jack was silent, but he looked about eagerly on every hand for some sign of human life. If the people had heard his cries, surely they would come to see who called for help in such a place. His elephant was now quietly feeding with the rest, and the last rays of the sun were shining through a gap in the hills straight into the hollow where the elephants were gathered.

Looking eagerly back on the track the herd had followed, Jack saw something moving in the wild plum-bushes about three hundred yards away. He looked closer and saw that it was a man, a native. His heart leaped for joy. Whether friends or enemies, perhaps he was about to be loosed from his dreadful position. Now he saw a second man, and the two dark figures, both naked save for a waist-cloth, crept slowly towards him under cover of the bushes.

They were a couple of Panthay wood-cutters, felling teak trees on the edge of the ravine. At present the ravine was dry, but in the rainy season an ample flood of water roared along the hollow, a flood which would carry the teak logs down to the big river below. They had heard Jack's cries, and, wondering at the strange sound, had followed up in rear of the flying elephants.

Their surprise was immense when they saw a white sahib in the howdah on the elephant's back. But in this part of the country, where white men very rarely came, a white face was regarded with the deepest reverence, and the simple, harmless Panthays at once set about the task of relieving the sahib who seemed unable to rise in his carriage. One of them disappeared at once into the jungle, one remained in the bushes.

Jack saw that they were engaged upon some plan, and hoping that it meant his deliverance, he remained silent, and watched eagerly for what was about to happen.

Within ten minutes he saw one of the woodmen swarming up a tree some distance ahead, a tree growing beside the well-trodden path which wild beasts had made along the foot of the ravine. Then his companion showed himself among the bushes below and uttered a peculiar cry. The wild elephants stopped feeding at once. Always sensitive to the presence of man, which means danger, they gathered uneasily in a group. Then, following the lead of an immense bull, the patriarch of the herd, they lumbered along the path up the ravine and away from the wood-cutter who had shown himself.