Caesar & Hussein. Patrick O’Brian

the hunting time for the big carnivores is the night.

      I saw the fireflies dancing in among the grasses in front of me, and vaguely I wondered where they got the light from. As I travelled along the deer trails I began to notice a scent in the air which I did not recognise, and as I progressed the smell grew more powerful, until at last I knew I must be very near the beast, whatever it was.

      Then breaking through some bushes (I had left the path in my curiosity) I emerged into a clearance, where I saw a huge black shape standing still in a corner.

      It was an elephant, and what is more it was a rogue elephant, or a mad one which had been driven from the herd. It raised its trunk as it caught my scent, and seemed puzzled.

      Then the moon rose and showed me up. He saw me, and I saw that his little red eyes glittered in the pale light, which also shone on his huge tusks. All at once the great beast came at me with its trunk curled in the air, as fast as the forest fire and as silent as a snake. With its great ears spread wide it was on me before I had time to spring properly, and I received a shattering blow in the side from the powerful trunk which knocked me into a thorn bush.

      I roared with pain, but I had barely time to scramble to my feet when the elephant turned and charged again. This time I managed to claw my way on to his great broad neck, and there I endeavoured to tear him to small pieces.

      I had reckoned without the trunk, however, which flicked me off like a mosquito, and I fell to the ground with a thump. Feeling very dazed as I struggled to my feet, I heard the elephant charge on for a little way. Then he stopped and, turning, began to search for me.

      I kept quite still, hoping that he would miss me. As the elephant came nearer I noticed something moving in the bushes near me, and the elephant saw it too for he turned off towards it with a rush.

      A large black panther leapt out into the clearing, his tail switching his sides.

      I knew there must be something wrong with him. Then in the moonlight I saw that his flanks were full of arrows. The two mad beasts stood glaring for a second, and then the elephant, trumpeting shrilly, charged. The panther sprang straight up at his face, but was seized at once in a grip of iron by the elephant’s trunk, whirled aloft, and dashed with a sickening thud against a tree. The elephant then knelt on the body, breaking every bone in it, and gored it with his tusks, which showed red in the moonlight.

      I did not stay any longer, but slipped noiselessly away. The wind was blowing in my direction, and I knew that he would not scent me.

      I quickly regained the path made by the deer, and feeling very stiff and bruised I sat down under the cover of a bush and licked myself all over, pulling out many thorns from my body, after which I felt better and continued to follow my original trail.

      After some time I came to a large river where all the tracks disappeared, and I saw that the herds must have crossed here.

      I did not feel up to crossing the broad stream, so I turned back along the path by which I had come until I came to another track which crossed the main one. This I followed up, and at last I came upon a sambhur doe sleeping; and creeping round a tree near her I climbed it, and I was able by crawling along an overhanging branch to spring straight on to her back, and I despatched her at once.

      I made my meal where I was, and having gorged my fill I reascended the tree, and finding a comfortable crotch about twenty feet from the ground, I watched the glowing eyes of the jackals close in round the remnants of my feast.

       Seven

      Some weeks passed quite peacefully after my elephant adventure before anything noteworthy happened. I was living in my cave at the time and feeding to a large extent upon the villagers’ herds.

      They increased their guard, but the men were afraid of me, and most of them ran on seeing me; also, they had no sense of smell, and as they themselves smelt quite strongly I had a great advantage over them.

      But they were able on their part to pick up stones and make them fly in rather a puzzling manner, though the worst of all were the arrows which I often broke off short, and the points remained in me and rankled.

      At last it appeared that the head man of the village became so angry at losing his cattle that he sent for the white men who lived in a small town twenty miles south. He had asked them to kill a tiger, for none of them had seen me for any length of time. So when the beaters and elephants came upon me in a lot of elephant grass they were evidently surprised to find me so large (as I had been growing very fast and was as large as a very big tiger).

      On seeing the elephants I was much alarmed, but seeing there was no possible means of escape I charged the nearest, hoping to take him by surprise.

      I sprang high on to his shoulder, and there I saw the little brown man who had tracked me nearly a month ago. He struck at me with an iron rod, but missed, and I knocked him off the elephant’s back.

      Then I heard a terrific bang, and turning I saw another man in a kind of hut, and in his hands was one of the shiny sticks with which I had been hurt before.

      This man was quite white, rather like a dead man, and behind him was another, pointing his stick at me.

      I sprang at him. I saw the flash and heard the deafening boom again. Then something hit me on the top of my head, and the world seemed to spin round and I heard the trumpeting of the elephant very faintly, and then I remember nothing more.

      When my sense returned I was stretched on the ground, and there was a circle of white men standing around me. One said: ‘A queer sort of tiger, isn’t it?’

      ‘I think it’s a sort of overgrown snow-leopard myself,’ replied the young man who had shot me.

      Then I moved and they were much alarmed. ‘Look out — the thing's only stunned,’ said one.

      ‘Get those bear nets — take it alive,’ rejoined another.

      I half rose — giddy and sick, but a man behind me brought down the heavy end of a stick on my head, and I lost consciousness again in a world of stars.

      When I came round again I was enveloped in yards and yards of stout net tied at the top with a rope. I kicked and bit at the nets, but it was of no use, so I stopped.

      Some men approached me with long poles. I struggled to get at them, but they were not in the least alarmed. And coming nearer they thrust the poles under the net, and each man taking hold of one pole-end they carried me roaring and struggling towards the place where the elephants were standing.

      This caused me considerable alarm, but the elephants, who actually appeared to be obeying the men, took very little notice of me, except one of the little elephants who was trumpeting.

      I was conveyed to a small thing that resembled a box mounted on circular discs which went round, and I afterwards found out it was a cart.

      After a while I lay still, and after that I smelt some bullocks, which the men were driving towards me. Soon the cart began to move, to my surprise, for I saw no legs on it. However, the mystery was soon solved, for I twisted round and saw that the bullocks were dragging it along.

      We soon came to a village, and hundreds of people came out to look at me. They retired hurriedly when I roared.

      Soon they became bolder, and one young man got a long stick and poked me with it, and another threw a stone at me.

      Presently, however, one of the white men came out of a hut and drove them away.

      Then the journey recommenced, and I was jolted over about ten miles before we came to a halt again.

      Night was approaching, and I was beginning to wonder if we would ever stop when one of the men who was leading the bullocks trod on a dust snake and expired on the spot, to my great glee.

      The party stopped, and