THE JUNGLE SPIRIT
It took us much longer to return home. We lost nearly twenty-four
hours in a jungle where we had the strangest experiences of our
lives. We had already covered half the distance when one day at
noon we reached the river across which lay the jungle. It was so
hot that Kari would not go any further. The moment he smelled the
moist earth of the river bank, he literally ran into the water
and lay there. Kopee and I had to sit on his back, while the
waves of the river played around us as the waves of the sea play
around an island. Kari kept his trunk above the water, and when
he moved we almost fell off his back. The monkey clung to me,
for, as you know, monkeys do not know how to swim. There are two
reasons why monkeys are afraid of the water; not only are they
unable to swim because the fingers of their hands are not webbed
together as are ducks' toes, but being accustomed to go through
the air by leaping from branch to branch, they think that they
should leap from place to place in the water.
Seeing that the elephant was wayward, I told Kopee to hold on to
my head. Then I swam ashore and waited for the elephant to come
out. Now that we were off his back, he raised himself a little
above the water and began to draw vast quantities of water up his
trunk and snorted it out at the monkey who was running up and
down the shore, chattering fiercely and keeping at a safe
distance to avoid being drenched.
This shows that elephants have a sense of humor. They always know
where to keep a monkey, and it is the monkey's business to know
when the elephant is going to indulge in humor.
As elephants do not know that monkeys cannot swim, I was afraid
that if Kopee was not careful, Kari might throw him into the
river for fun, and that would have been the end of him.
I soon forgot the elephant and the monkey, however, and fell
asleep on the river bank. I was awakened by a terrible cry from
the monkey and a trumpeting from the elephant. I sat up with a
start and I saw Kopee sitting on the ground shivering with
terror, and Kari standing in front of him, waving his trunk in
the air and trumpeting for all he was worth. I lay on the ground
and lifted myself on my elbows. Through the elephant's legs I saw
a great snake, right under him, held almost between his
fore-legs. My blood congealed in terror. Of course Kari was five
years old; his skin was so thick that the cobra could never bite
deep enough to bury its poisonous fangs in his arteries. The
monkey was hypnotized with fear, but he could neither run away,
nor go forward, nor come to me. He sat there shivering with
terror.
I crept slyly around the elephant and approached Kopee. I knew
that if I touched him, he would turn around and bite me. He was
so frightened that anything that touched him would mean to his
excited brain only the sting of the snake. The idea that he would
be stung to death had taken possession of the whole animal.
I could now see what had happened. The elephant had stepped on
the middle of the snake. Its back was broken and it could not
move, but there was life in the rest of its body and it was
standing erect like a sharp column of ebony, its black hood with
a white mark on it spread out as large as the palm of a man's
hand. Of course, it could not stay in that position long. It
swayed and almost fell to the ground. The moment that happened,
Kari raised his foot and put it down on the snake's neck. But the
snake lifted up its head in such a way that whenever there was a
chance for the elephant to put his foot on its head it would
immediately raise itself on its broken back. Its agony must have
been great, yet it would not give in for a long time.
As the snake could not move with its back broken and the foot of
the elephant still on it, I knew I had better go and kill it with
a stick. As I approached it with my stick, the monkey's eyes
which had been fixed on the snake, suddenly moved. He looked at
me and bounded off with a piercing, chattering yell towards the
nearest tree. The spirit of terror that had held him hypnotized
so long was broken at last, for he had seen someone who could
kill the snake.
The moment the monkey bounded off, the snake stung the elephant's
toe nails, those horny plates around his feet. This is a vital
spot, as the arteries come very near the surface. Knowing this,
Kari raised his foot. Evidently he was not hurt, but I was not
sure how long he could stand on three legs. I was also afraid
that he would fall and bring his trunk near the snake, and any
snake can poison an elephant by stinging the end of his trunk. I
hit the snake on the head with my stick, but instead of striking
his head, the stick slipped down that ebony column which was
still standing erect. Fortunately, in order to avert the next
blow, the snake fell on his side. That very instant the up-raised
foot of the elephant was on his head.
[Illustration: THAT VERY INSTANT THE UP-RAISED FOOT OF THE
ELEPHANT WAS ON HIS HEAD]
Kari walked away and pawed the sand with his feet to cleanse
them. I thought of calling to Kopee who had taken refuge on a
tree-top, but I was so anxious to know whether the elephant's
foot was hurt or not, that I followed him about until he let me
look at it. I was relieved to see that the skin of his foot had
not been broken.
Then I called to the monkey to come down from the tree. He shook
his head. I knew he was so ashamed of being afraid that he
preferred to be alone in the privacy of the tree in order to
gather his forces together.
The sun was beginning to sink. The jungle was not very far off
and I was certain that the breeze blowing across the river had
taken the scent of human beings into the depths of the forest.
The twilight came swiftly. The bars of gold and light vibrated
over the tawny waters, and darkness fell like a black sword,
cutting the day from the night. The voices of the birds from the
tree-tops, here and there died down, and as if to enhance the
silence, insect voices came from under the grass. I got on my
elephant's back and sat there quietly, for as the evening Silence
goes by, each man must make his prayer. As the Silence walked on,
I could see the grass waving in zig-zag curves across the river.
It was always making half the figure eight in the undergrowth of
the jungle.
Gradually all grew still and then over the river came the
terrible hunger wail of a tiger. That instant its tawny face
scarred with black emerged from behind green leaves. He saw I was
across the river. The tiger's body is marked with the same
stripes and curves as he makes in the grass when he walks, and
people in the jungle can always tell by the wave of the grass
which animal has passed that way.
Throughout the country-side, wherever the echo of the wail was
heard, a tension fell upon everything. Even the saplings were
tense, and you could almost hear the cracking of the muscles of
the animals holding themselves together and watching which way
the tiger would pass. It was as if the horn of the chase had
sounded and blown; each one had to take to cover.
Night came on apace. I wanted to tie Kari to a big tree, but he
refused to be tied up that night. He paced up and down the shore
without making the slightest noise. Then he would suddenly stand
still and stop the waving of his ears in order to listen very
intently to shadows of songs that might be passing. I stayed on
his back, intent on knowing what he was going to do. Soon, very
soon, the river became silver-yellow and over the jungle a
quickening silence throbbed from leaf to leaf.
Then swiftly the terrible face of the moon was upon us. Kari
snorted and stepped backwards. I, too, was surprised because this
was another moon, very rarely seen by men. It was the moon
bringing the call of the summer to the jungle. It was the call
for hunt and challenge, when elephants kill elephants to win
their mates. And under the moon lay a great sinister figure like
the terrible face of a dragon.
The July cloud was hovering in the distance, and between the
cloud-banks and the moon I saw strange things, as if throngs of
white animals were going from sky to sky--I don't know why--no
one ever knows. These are the spirits of the jungle, the dead
ancestors of the animals now living.
Without warning, Kari now plunged into the river. I spoke to him,
scratched his neck with the _ankus_, but he would not stop. He
forded the river, at times almost drowning, and charged madly up
the other shore, where we were lost in the darkness of leaves and
vines. No moonlight fell on us, not even the knowledge that the
moon was up could be vouched for in this thick black place.