That afternoon the royal party went with the elephant master to the place where the elephants were; there were about thirty bulls, besides Mukna. The place was a clear space, about a hundred yards across, with a lot of trees along the sides. Mukna was tied by the hind leg to one of those trees.
The royal party got out of their carriages and entered the open space on foot, quite near the spot where Mukna was tied up. They were not thinking of Mukna just at that moment, as they were talking of the grand feasts at the palace. So they did not notice Mukna at once.
Meanwhile Mukna had been brooding all day. He knew that his punishment would come very soon. "I will do it—I will do it!" he must have been saying to himself all the time. In that way he had worked himself into a fury.
When the royal party entered the open space, the young American happened to be nearest to Mukna. As he had just arrived from America, he did not know much about elephants; so the young American did not notice that Mukna was chained up to the tree by the hind leg, and that he was the bad elephant they had come to punish. Instead, the young American thought that Mukna was just one of the ordinary tame elephants working there.
So as the royal party happened to pass about ten yards in front of Mukna, the young American stepped aside and said, "Hello, I must pat you!" Saying that, he raised his hand and stepped toward Mukna to pat him.
But meanwhile, when Mukna had seen the elephant master arrive with the royal party, he knew that the moment of his punishment had come! "I will do it—I will do it!" he had kept saying before. So when the young American raised his hand, Mukna suddenly made up his mind to do it now!
Mukna gave just one short trumpet. The next instant he gave a vicious tug with his hind leg—and snapped the chain! With a huge stride he came toward the American and the royal party. He would "do it" now! He would kill them all!
Nothing could stop him from doing it, it seemed. He would knock them down and trample them to death.
But meanwhile the elephant master had heard the trumpet Mukna had given a moment before he broke the chain. And in an instant the elephant master realized what would happen.
"Run for your lives!" he shouted to the young American and the four princes. And he ran himself.