"So 'tamasha' sometimes means trouble?" queried Skag, remembering the tamer definition he had learned.
"It means anything anybody considers entertaining!" answered Horace. "By preference—an elephant fight! Remember, Government doesn't allow 'em; but sometimes they just happen anyway."
Then an elephant failed to answer. Several mahouts left their places and went to one spot; and Skag saw the one who had been called. He was sitting low against the ground, slowly rocking his head from side to side. A mahout was examining his ears—folding them back and feeling of them—laying his cheek against the inside surface.
"Is he sick?" Skag asked.
But the boy's eyes were wide upon the broad avenue before them, where the loaded elephants went marching away. Then he burst out, in choking excitement:
"Look, Skag Sahib! See that loaded elephant coming back from the line? I think you are going to see one of the most wonderful things that ever happened. They say it has been done; but I've never seen it—I've never seen it myself."
Skag saw a powerful elephant coming back alongside the loaded line. He did not move with the same smooth flowing motion as the others. He walked as if he were coming on important business. With a load on his back, he returned and sank down beside the pile of tenting intended for another elephant.
"What's the meaning of it?" Skag asked.
Little Horace Dickson answered in a hushed way—as one in the presence of a miracle:
"It is one of the regulars, come back to take a part of what belongs to the sick elephant."