"Well, next time it may be dark or cloudy, or raining, or at a different
time of year."
The elephants were again in motion, and, leaving the well-beaten dak
road behind us, we were now following an elephant's track, going at
every step more and more into scenery such as I had pictured to myself
when thinking about India as my future home.
"Look!" I cried excitedly, as, from the edge of a patch of jungle, a
couple of peacocks ran along for a few yards, and then took flight, one
blaze of bright colour for a few moments, as I caught flashes of vivid
blue and green, and metallic gold.
My hand went mechanically to the rifle behind me in the howdah, and the
doctor laughed.
"Well done, Englishman!" he cried. "Something beautiful, and wild.
Let's kill it!"
"We've come out shooting," I said, half sulkily.
"Yes--tigers!" said the doctor. "What a curious fate mine is--to live
always with you soldiers, who think of nothing but killing, while my
trade is to save life! There goes another peacock," he cried, as one of
the lovely birds, with an enormous train, ran out into the open, rose,
and went skimming away before us.
"I wonder such beautiful birds don't attract the common people; they're
grand eating. Why don't they get shot?"
"Sacred to everybody but to us Englishmen," he replied. "We are the
only savages out here who kill peafowl."
"Then the Hindoos don't like it?"
"Of course not; but they have to put up with it, all the same. And we
do rid them of the great cats which kill their cows--and themselves,
sometimes. Why, they will not even kill their poisonous snakes, and
thousands die of the bites every year."
"How lovely!" I said, as my eyes wandered round.
"What! To be killed by a snake?"
"No, no; this scenery."
"Oh yes; and Brace seems to be enjoying it too. I say, you don't seem
so thick with him as you were, squire."
"Oh, I don't know," I said indifferently.
"Well, I do, and I think you are foolish. Brace is a thorough good
fellow. Better stick to him, even if he does stir you up. He'll make a
man of you, without winning your money at cards."
_Snork_!
The elephant we were on trumpeted, and those behind threw up their
trunks, and seemed to echo the huge beast's cry.
"Look out!" said the doctor. "Rifles!"
For, about a hundred yards in front, there was something moving among
the trees, and soon after a couple of the huge Indian buffaloes walked
out into the open track in front, threw up their heads, one touching the
other with his wide-spreading horns, and stood staring at us, as if
puzzled at what he saw.
"Hold fast. Our elephant may spin round, and go off at a gallop," said
the doctor.
But the huge beast stood firm, only lowering its head, and swinging it
right and left, as it kept its little sagacious-looking eyes fixed upon
the great bulls in front, while its great tusks were ready to meet the
bulls' wide-spreading horns.
It was my first experience of being face to face with any of the large
game of India; and, as I grasped the idea of what a formidable creature
the buffalo was--certainly nearly double the size of one of our ordinary
oxen, my heart began to beat rather heavily.
"Shall I fire?" I whispered to the doctor; for I had my rifle resting
on the front of the howdah, ready to take aim.
"No," said a familiar voice on my right; and I found that Brace's
elephant had been urged forward until it was now close abreast of ours.
"If you fired at this distance, you would only be wasting a shot. You
could not bring either of the brutes down, and it would be only wounding
them for nothing."
"Going to charge, aren't they?" said the doctor.
"I hope not. They may think better of it, and go back into the jungle."
Brace was right, for, after standing staring stupidly at the elephants
for some moments, the great slaty-black creatures slowly moved off into
the dense growth on our left.