CHAPTER XL
EVIL DAYS FOR THE NJOKOOS
Evil days were now coming for the njokoos. During all the years they had been in the forest they had escaped many dangers, but henceforth they were to encounter great peril and disaster. In their wanderings they came at last to a part of the immense forest where there were villages inhabited by wild, fierce human beings.
These human beings were very cunning. They spent a great part of their lives sleeping in the forest, hunting njokoos for the sake of their ivory tusks, which they could barter; besides, they liked njokoo meat very much. They had all kinds of contrivances to trap njokoos. They dug many pits for them to fall into and made many hanous, or huge beams armed with big iron spikes, suspended among the trees, with lianas as ropes attached to them and coming to the ground, so that when the njokoos touched these, the heavy hanous, with their iron spikes, fell upon their backs.
One day as the njokoos were rambling, suddenly two hanous fell upon the backs of two of their number, broke their spines and killed them. The crash the hanous made in falling frightened all the other njokoos, for they did not know what it was, and they fled with the utmost speed. The noise they made in their flight was fearful, as they crashed through the jungle. After a long run they stopped, and looking at their number saw that two were missing, for they knew each other well. There was great sorrow among them. They said, “Let us go back where we heard the crash. Perhaps our missing companions are there.” For when they had heard the hanou fall, they were so frightened that they had no time to look and see what had happened. So they went back; and when they arrived at the place where the crash had occurred, they saw their two old companions lying on the ground dead. They uttered trumpetings of sorrow at the sight. They came round the poor bodies, and grasped their legs with their trunks to pull them up, but the legs fell back. They seized their trunks, but these also fell back on the ground. They trumpeted to them, but they did not answer. When they had made sure that they were dead, they left the place, but not before they had taken a careful look at the hanous.
They had not gone a long way before another hanou fell upon one of them. The rest fled in great dismay. As they were running, they saw another njokoo suddenly disappear under the ground. He had fallen into a pit dug by human beings to catch njokoos. It had been made with a great deal of cunning. Small sticks were placed close together over the pit, and covered with earth and dead leaves, so that the spot looked exactly like the ground. The elephants ran faster than they had ever done in their lives before.
The next day the njokoos returned to the place where their companion had suddenly disappeared. When they approached, they heard his dying moans. They called to him, “Come to us; come to us: we have come to help you out;” but no answer came back to them, only the same moans. Some went to the border of the pit and saw that it was very deep, and at the bottom was their poor friend at death’s door. They knew the poor wounded njokoo was dying, for his legs were all broken from his own heavy weight when he fell. The walls of the pit were perpendicular so they could not reach him. Then they left, saying, “Let us flee from this country; it is the worst we have ever seen.”
In their eagerness to flee after the misfortunes that had happened to them, the njokoos crossed high and steep mountains all covered with dense forest and at last thought themselves safe. But one morning they heard a great noise behind them. This noise was made by human voices. “Let us flee,” cried the njokoos again, and they broke into a run, when suddenly they came upon a network of lianas twisted together, forming a kind of stockade, which had been made by human beings. As the unhappy njokoos tried to break through, human beings who had stationed themselves in the trees threw spears at them, and many were killed, only a few escaping with their lives. Among those who fell were some of the wisest of the herd. From that time on, the njokoos never long enjoyed peace.
After many years of wanderings, only two remained of that big and splendid herd,—an old njokoo and his mate. The old one said sorrowfully: “Dear, we have been companions for many rainy and dry seasons. We started in life together when we were young, and now we are old; all our folks have been killed, and we are left alone. Our life has been a hard one indeed; we have had hardly any peace; our time has been spent in trying to escape from our enemies, the wicked human beings. Many times, to avoid them, we have taken refuge in the highest mountains, in the thickest part of the forest and jungle, in impenetrable swamps, in most inaccessible places; but they have always managed to find us. Though we are the strongest and biggest creatures of this forest, we have had to flee before them.”
Then he rubbed his body against hers and trumpeted his affection, which she returned also, for they loved each other very much, and were especially drawn together by the misfortunes they had suffered in common. They did not know where to go. They were in sore distress. They had escaped from the land of hanous, of pits and spears, and now after a long journey in which they had crossed many steep mountains and swum across many rivers, they had come to the land of guns. They regretted deeply the loss of their old leader, for they remembered his great skill and how he avoided many dangers. “One of the great misfortunes of us njokoos,” they said, “is that our tracks are very conspicuous, for we are so big and heavy.”