At midnight, therefore, Moti Guj strode out of his pickets, for a thought had come to him that Deesa might be lying drunk somewhere in the dark forest with none to look after him. So all that night he chased through the undergrowth, blowing and trumpeting and shaking his ears. He went down to the river and [blared across the shallows] where Deesa used to wash him, but there was no answer. He could not find Deesa, but he disturbed all the other elephants in the lines, and nearly frightened to death some gypsies in the woods.
At dawn Deesa returned to the plantation. He had been very drunk indeed, and he expected to get into trouble for outstaying his leave. He drew a long breath when he saw that the bungalow and the plantation were still uninjured, for he knew something of Moti Guj’s temper, and reported himself with many lies and salaams. Moti Guj had gone to his pickets for breakfast. The night exercise had made him hungry.
“Call up your beast,” said the planter; and Deesa shouted in the mysterious elephant language that some mahouts believe came from China at the birth of the world, when elephants and not men were masters. Moti Guj heard and came. Elephants do not gallop. They move from places at varying rates of speed. If an elephant wished to catch an express train he could not gallop, but he could catch the train. So Moti Guj was at the planter’s door almost before Chihun noticed that he had left his pickets. He fell into Deesa’s arms, trumpeting with joy, and the man and beast wept and slobbered over each other, and handled each other from head to heel to see that no harm had befallen.
“Now we will get to work,” said Deesa. “Lift me up, my son and my joy!”
Moti Guj swung him up, and the two went to the coffee-clearing to look for difficult stumps.
The planter was too astonished to be very angry.
NOTES AND QUESTIONS
Biography. Rudyard Kipling (1865—) was born in Bombay, India, of British parents. He was sent to England for most of his education, but at the age of seventeen he returned to India to work as a journalist. Very soon he began to write tales of the life about him, as well as poems dealing with British civil officials and soldiers in India. By the time he was twenty-four he had won fame with his Plain Tales from the Hills and other short stories; and when he published Barrack Room Ballads, in 1892, he was widely recognized as a great poet. From 1892 to 1896 he lived in the United States. Perhaps he is best known to boys and girls as the author of the Jungle Books. He is a master of the art of telling stories, either in prose or verse. His ballads about the British soldier, “Tommy Atkins,” and his experiences on the frontiers of civilization, have a ring and a movement that suggests the old days when the ballad-maker was a man of action, living the adventures that he celebrated in song.
Discussion. 1. Read all that tells you of the time and place in which this mutiny occurred. 2. Read all that gives you a picture of life on the clearing. 3. Who is the principal character in the story? 4. What caused the mutiny? 5. What ended it? 6. What is the most interesting point in the story? 7. Read parts that convince you that Kipling knows the characteristics of the elephant. 8. Find instances where he exaggerates the intelligence of the elephant, giving it human characteristics. 9. Does this add to or take from the interest of the story? 10. Read parts in which humor is shown in dialogue or incident. 11. Tell in your own words the main incident. 12. What do you like about this story? 13. Tell what you know of the author. 14. Pronounce the following: orgy; draughts; devastating; amateur; deign.