He was approaching the water, presumably to quench his thirst, and in a few more strides stood upon its edge, not fifty yards from the spot where the people were sitting, luckily behind some bushes that screened them from his sight. They were not all seated now, however, as several of the young Boers had sprung upon their feet, and were hastening to get hold of their guns. Some already had them in hand, but delayed opening fire, a word from baas Rynwald restraining them. A caution it was in view of the risk to be run. For, should they fail to kill the bull at once, and only wound and infuriate him, then would they all be at his mercy. Besides, he was only a Karl-kop, an aged one, and not worth powder and ball. These admonitions were spoken in a whisper, nor was there any noise made otherwise, lest the elephant should hear and strike off in retreat, or, what was just as likely, charge into their midst. But the caution was acted upon, and not a shot fired; instead, silence preserved by one and all, so profound that the rustling of a leaf might have been heard from afar. There was not a breath of air stirring at the time, and the water was still and smooth as a mirror.
By this the old bull had entered it, and they now saw that something besides thirst had brought him thither. He drank, too, till satisfied, his first performance. After which, wading a stride or two farther in, he proceeded to give himself a shower-bath, drawing the water into his trunk, and blowing it out again upwards, so that it fell over his back in spray as from a whale-spout. For some five minutes had he been thus sprinkling himself, when he was seen all at once to start, pluck his proboscis out of the water, and, uttering a cry as of rage and pain, wheel back towards the beach.
What the cause of this unexpected demonstration was, the spectators could not tell. Amid the eddies he had raised, with floating froth and bubbles, nothing was observable to explain it. And the Karl-kop himself seemed equally ignorant of it, for, on reaching dry land, he faced round again, and stood regarding the spot he had so abruptly abandoned with a puzzled, mystified air.
Only for a few seconds stood he thus, when his little eyes began to sparkle with a peculiar intelligence, his ears giving indication of the same by a satisfied flap or two, as much as to say, “Now I know what did it.” Then, as if determined to have his bath out, he strode back into the water, till nearly knee-deep, and once more plunged his proboscis underneath. But his design was all different, as the spectators were soon made aware by seeing a ripple on the surface of the water, a moving furrow as from the dorsal fin of a shark, but which they knew to be caused by a crocodile. And a crocodile it was; one of small size, not over six or seven feet in length. But surely the same that had made a snap at the elephant’s trunk, inflicting a wound which, though slight, was enough to account for that angry scream, with the action accompanying.
Many tales have been told of the sagacity of elephants, and many instances recorded, truthful too. But, perhaps, never one affording better proof of it, and certainly none stranger, than that the Vee-Boers were witnesses of there and then. Standing still, with trunk partly submerged, the great pachyderm kept the long, flexible feeler in constant, but gentle oscillation, playing its tip horizontally from side to side, as an angler his fly, or mock-minnow.
The bait took almost instantly. Scarce a minute had elapsed, ere the crocodile, drawing close up, under the surface, cautiously, made a second attempt to seize it. This time to get seized itself, and jerked out of the water, as if it had been but a sprat. Then the elephant again facing shoreward, strode out, still holding it in his trunk with octopus-like clasp, more than one lap of the gristly tube being around it. High in air was the reptile raised, to be hoisted yet higher, as soon as the Karl-kop set foot on land.
For it was tossed up into a tree, and fell in a fork between two branches, elastic boughs, that, closing upon it, held it as in a vice, despite all its writhings and wrigglings!
The spectators affirm that the elephant flung it into that particular crotch, with a foreknowledge of the result, though I myself rather think that the deposition was a thing of chance.
From that high eminence the ugly creature never came down, though a bullet, afterwards sent into it in mercy, brought its struggles to an end.