"Save me! Sahib, save me!" he shrieked, while Alec looked on powerless to help.
Maharaj seemed undecided whether to dash him to pieces or not. Alec seized the opportunity to imitate the driver's voice and cry, "Bring the boys home safely—very safely—my son." The elephant's great fan-shaped ears bent forward to listen, and he lowered Tippoo till he hung swinging at the end of the huge proboscis. Alec felt he dared not repeat the words, as the elephant would find out the cheat.
The great beast stood a few minutes thinking, and then, swinging Tippoo up, placed him on his neck, and came straight for the tree behind which Alec was hiding.
For a moment a wild desire to escape came to the boy, and the next he saw how hopeless it would be. The sal-tree he had sheltered behind was too thick to climb, and the lowest branch was twenty feet from the ground. To run would be just madness, for Maharaj would have caught him before he could get to the nearest hut. So, taking confidence from the fact that he had not hurt Tippoo, Alec came out from behind the tree and ordered Maharaj to take him up.
He was surprised at the exceeding gentleness with which he did so, but when Alec was once seated astride of his neck with Tippoo behind him, he did not know what to do. He thought he would walk the elephant round the village and then tie him up in his pickets again. So he cried, "Chalo! Bata!" (Go on, my son), and tried to guide him with his knees; but Maharaj would not budge an inch, and stood stock still, considering. Then he seemed to have made up his mind, and started forward suddenly with a lurch that nearly threw the boys off.
He walked straight to the dead mahout and, carefully gathering him up in his trunk, wheeled round and set off stationwards. He had remembered his master's commands, and the journey to Cawnpore he must commence on the morrow.
It was about eight o'clock in the evening, and Alec had no desire to start travelling homeward at that hour. Besides, he had no food with him, and the pad was not on the back of Maharaj. It is almost impossible to ride an elephant bare back, and though these were only slips of boys there wasn't room enough for two to sit comfortably on the neck. Alec drove his knees into the elephant's head behind the ears and tried to turn him round, shouting, "Dhutt, dhutt, arrea!" (Go back!), but it was no use; the elephant had made up his mind to go home, and took not the least notice of the boy's commands.
The head man of the village ran after them, crying—
"Where are you taking him, Sahib?"
"We take him nowhere," Alec answered. "He is master to-night, and carries us home, I believe."