“Look out there!” he exclaimed, but those in advance had already turned the corner of a bush, and found themselves within a hundred paces of a huge male elephant.
Jerry at once pointed the blunderbuss and shut his eyes, and would infallibly have pulled the trigger, if Sandy Black, who had in some measure become his keeper, had not seized his wrist and wrenched the weapon from his grasp.
“Man, ye’ll be the death o’ somebody yet,” he said in a low stern tone.
Jerry at once became penitent and on giving a solemn promise that he would not fire till he obtained permission, received his weapon back.
“Een groot gruwzaam karl,” whispered one of the Hottentots, in broken Dutch.
“My certie, but he is a great gruesome carl!” said Black, echoing in Scotch the Dutchman’s expression as he gazed in admiration.
“He’s fourteen feet high if he’s an inch,” observed George Rennie.
The scent and hearing of the elephant are both keen, but his sight is not very good. As the wind chanced to blow from him to the hunters he had not perceived them. This was fortunate, for it would have been highly dangerous to have attacked him in such ground. They wheeled round therefore and galloped away towards some scattered rocks, whence they could better approach him on foot. Dismounting, the leaders formed a hasty plan of operations, and immediately proceeded to put it in execution.
It may have been that their explanation of the plan was not lucid, or that Jerry Goldboy’s head was not clear, but certain it is that after having been carefully told what to do, he dashed into the jungle after Sandy Black and did what seemed right in his own eyes.
Black kept close to the heels of Hans Marais, and so did Considine, but Jerry soon began to pant with excitement; then he stumbled and fell. Before recovering himself from a “wait-a-bit” thorn he had been left out of sight behind. He pushed valiantly on however and came to a small open plain, where he looked anxiously round, but his comrades were nowhere to be seen. Just then a shot was fired, it was followed quickly by another, and then was heard, above the shouting of excited Hottentots, the shrill screaming of wounded and enraged elephants. Jerry heard the tremendous sounds for the first time, and quaked in his spinal marrow.