Through grey avenues of forest trees—rolling down khuds, ringing up crags—the voice of Nut Kut went on out beyond the mountain peaks, to meet approaching day. Nut Kut, the great black elephant who had been trapped in these same Vindha Hills only a few years ago, was rejoicing in freedom again. Nut Kut, who had already made his reputation as the most deadly fighter known to the mahouts, was exulting in strength. It was his joy-song. It came from straight ahead. Mitha Baba answered with a rollicking squeal. But the wild herd voices were savage—chaotic. Now Nut Kut's challenge came back—looming. The situation was no longer absurd.
It meant a fight—an open fight—between the wild herd and the caravan. The wild herd would never give Mitha Baba over to her own—they would surely fight to keep her. Everything tightened in the Gul Moti and locked—hard. She had known most of the caravan elephants all her life—what would happen to them? They had lived among men these many and many years—never permitted to fight—they could not be equally fighting-fit. The herd would be much leaner—it must be much tougher. So she bruised her head and her heart between the things that were due to happen to her caravan—horrible punishments and almost certain deaths.
When the caravan appeared, the males were leading; the four females well in the rear. Nut Kut's flaming orange and imperial-blue trappings covered and cumbered him; and young Gunpat Rao's gorgeous saffron and old-rose burned through the Gul Moti's eyes to the hard lump in her throat—it was the one time in their lives when they should be free.
At once the wild females gathered their youngsters—and some who seemed almost mature—cutting them out from the herd and driving them back. This revealed the wild fighters—many more in number than those of the caravan. The approaching challenges, from both sides, were thundering thick and fast now. The two bodies of elephants were plunging down the opposite sides of a deep khud and would meet in the broad bottom. Mitha Baba—the big males on each side of her—was setting the pace for this side, as if everything depended on time. But when they were quite close, she rushed ahead—straight through the caravan and beyond.
Mitha Baba had been leading her catch to her own stockades—being in no wise responsible that they were not trap-stockades! Now, the home elephants having come to receive it, she had rushed it in—exactly as she would have rushed it into a trap. But Mitha Baba was not satisfied. With a curious little call she wheeled, coming back to face the wild herd from her own side.
It was a turmoil that looked and sounded like nothing imaginable. The fighting pairs were choosing each other and taking place. They had plenty of room. When it was settled between them, Nut Kut was facing the most powerful-looking of the wild fighters; and Gunpat Rao, another who looked almost as dangerous. The extra males of the wild herd—every one formidable—were skirmishing about, watching for a chance to interfere. It looked bad for the caravan.
The mahouts—the Gul Moti had scarcely remembered them till now—were calling back and forth about a bad one, a "tricky elephant." Following their gestures, she saw a pale shape moving around in the open. They left no doubt that he represented the worst of all danger. They were charging each other to watch him—never mind what.
. . . The fight was on. Plainly—in every tone, every action—the wild went in with wild enthusiasm, the tame with grave determination. Mitha Baba, having come in closer than any of the other females, did not move,—save for a constant turning of her head under the Gul Moti's icy fingers—seeming to keep an eye on all the separate fights at once.
Her fear for the caravan elephants was anguish, her fatigue extreme; but excitement held the Gul Moti in a vise. She saw the fighters meet, skull to skull. (Those were the frightful blows she had heard in the dark, through the trumpeting of a whole herd!) How could any living thing endure the impact of such weight? She looked to see the skin break away and fall apart at once. She expected to see an elephant's head split open. It was nerve-wrecking—an arena of giant violence.
"Pray the gods to send Neela Deo!" one of the mahouts shouted.