The boy had not a very clear idea of what he could do by this, but he felt that it gave him his only chance to keep out from under the giant animal’s feet.
The elephant bellowed and pranced about wildly. He coiled his trunk around Trim, who did not need to hang on, for it held him fast and raised him high up into the air.
The blacks on the raft fell upon their knees and put their faces in their hands.
They were perfectly certain of what would happen. The elephant intended to dash Trim to the ground with such force that every bone in his body would be broken.
He held the boy poised in air for an instant, just as a ball player sometimes holds the ball in his hand at arm’s length before he throws; then he swayed his trunk backward and forward more and more each time. Finally, with another terrific roar he whirled the trunk back as far as he could and then let it shoot forward.
Trim had kept his eyes open during all this, and his mind was at work as rapidly and clearly as ever. He, too, realized what the insane beast wanted to do.
Just as the trunk began to shoot forward he fired his revolver into the finger-like end of the trunk.
The flesh there is soft and sensitive.
The elephant’s roar changed to a snort of pain, the grip of the trunk was released, and Trim, instead of being hurled down to the ground, shot outward from the swaying trunk, flew through the air not less than forty feet and fell into the river.
He prepared himself for the dive as he went, and consequently struck the water in such a way that the breath was not knocked out of him.