"Five or six elephants advanced directly toward him, and when they were not more than forty yards away he fired at the largest. The shot had the effect of alarming the herd greatly, but without bringing down anything. The wounded elephant whirled about and roared, and then stood still among his companions, to see where the danger came from.
"The smell of the powder revealed that their assailant was at the foot of the mound in front of them, and immediately the herd gathered in line and prepared to charge. The captain and his gun-bearer would have been trampled to death in a moment if the elephants had made their charge, and he was certainly in an awkward predicament.
"They stood in a sideway position, so that he didn't have a fair shot at the foreheads of any of them. Unless you hit an African elephant square in the centre of the forehead there is little hope of killing him. The captain's only safety was in frightening them, and so he fired at the sides of their heads, and let off two shots in quick succession. This had the effect of turning them round, and drove them to where I was concealed in the tall grass, at the foot of another mound.
"I ran the same risk as the captain, but with the difference that the elephants were frightened and making a straight course over my position in order to get away. Abdul sprung to his feet and fired, and so did I; and then we shouted, and kept the shots going, one after the other, till we made a greater panic even than the captain had created.
"The herd turned again and went back over the plain, and we were safe for the time. I wanted to follow them up, and so did the captain; but time did not permit, and we returned to the column, which had been resting by the roadside while we were absent on our unsuccessful hunt."
Just before dusk, when the caravan halted to go into camp, a solitary elephant was seen leisurely feeding in the grass not more than three hundred yards from the road. Frank wanted to have a shot at him, but his proposal was vetoed by Captain Mohammed as a dangerous performance.
"Don't go near him," said the captain; "he is a 'rogue' elephant, and one of the most dangerous of his class."
