Skag watched the added load going into place on the volunteer. It was almost finished, when a trumpet blast sounded directly behind him—toward Hurda. Several elephants answered from the regiment; and many mahouts called to each other.
"Is that the bad fighter coming?" Skag asked.
"Yes, Skag Sahib, that's Nut Kut. But I don't know just what you're going to see—the ones who ought to handle him are all gone."
The master-mahout's voice was rising up into the vault of heaven and falling over upon the horizon. It seemed to Skag the like was never heard before.
"He's calling the two big tuskers back," Horace chuckled, "but there'll be doings on before they get here! Will you listen to Nut Kut's challenge?"
Skag turned to face the looming trumpet tones. There were no tones behind him like them. Smooth and mellow, they were yet so full of power as to make all the others sound insignificant. They were like love-tones translated into thunder.
But when Nut Kut came in sight, Skag caught his breath. The shape was made of gleaming bronze. No detail showed; it was a thing that took the eye and the breath and the blood. There was no look of effort in its inscrutable motion.
They stood in the open, between this thing and the regiment behind. There was no obstruction. And Skag moved to be between it and Horace—when it should pass them on its way. The regiment of thoroughly trained elephants were standing firmly in their places; but they were making the welkin ring with a thousand trumpets in the air.
Certainly Skag knew that this incredible thing before him—bigger every second—was Nut Kut. He looked to see why the great challenge-tones had stopped, and revelation went through him—like an explosion. Nut Kut had seen Horace and was coming straight for him.
Skag leaped to meet Nut Kut first, but he couldn't catch the elephant's eye. The huge shape was upon him and he was flung aside. Recovering himself almost instantly, he got around in time to see—but not in time to prevent.