"THEN SOMETHING STRONG GRABBED ME BY THE HIND LEG, AND PULLED ME ..."
"The next happening was worse, for it came from the Men-kind. It was a hot, hot day. We were all standing on a hill in the shade of trees, flapping our ears to keep the flies off, when suddenly Old Bull kinked his head sideways, whistled softly through his trunk, and we all stopped flapping to listen. Even Calf as I was, I knew there was some danger near. In the wind there was nothing—nothing unusual, just the sweet scent of the tiny little white flowers that grow close to the short grass. But Old Bull was afraid; he gave a signal for us to move, and we started.
"In a minute there was an awful cracking like the breaking of a tree, only different, and we all ran here, there, everywhere. Of course since that, having been taken in the hunt by the Men-kind, I know it was a gun, as they call it.
"Old Bull charged straight for a little white cloud that rose from where the noise had been; then crack! crack! crack! the guns trumpeted all over the Jungle—but I won't tell any more of that happening, because Old Bull was killed; and Mah, too—though the Men-kind said afterwards, so I've heard, that it was a mistake, as they only killed Bulls, being white hunters, for the sake of the feet and tusks.
"It was late in the evening before the herd gathered again, and we traveled far, fearing the evil of the Men-kind."
"Was there no evil with your own people?" queried Wolf. "Just feeding, and nothing else?"
"Well," answered Hathi, hesitatingly, "sometimes in a herd there grows up one who is a 'Rogue.' We had one such, I remember. But that also came about because of the Men-kind—a yellow man. It was a Hill-man, and when this Rogue of whom I speak—he also was a Bull—was just full grown, a matter of perhaps twenty years, this Hill-man thrust into his head, from a distance, too, being seated in a tree, an arrow.
"The arrow remaining there as it did, caused this Bull to become of an evil temper. Quarreling, quarreling always, butting his huge head into a comrade because of a mere nothing; and with his tusks putting his mark on many of us without cause; sometimes it would be a kick from his forefoot, or a slap of his trunk. When we were near to the places of the Men-kind he would wallow in the rice fields, and pull up the young plantain trees by the roots, even knock the queer little houses they lived in to pieces, for they were but of bamboo and leaves. Of course the dwellers ran for their lives, and sometimes brought fire, and made noise with their guns, and beat gongs to frighten him away.
"Many times we drove him forth from the herd; and sometimes he stayed away himself for days, sulky. In the end we lost him altogether, and we were all glad; but strange as it may appear, I saw him again in Rangoon in the timber yards. That was after I was caught."
"Tell us about that happening," pleaded Sa'-zada, "for it is even not written in The Book."