THE LAST ROUND
“On the morrow I woke up full of painful recollections, and not without
a certain feeling of gratitude to the Powers above that I was there to
wake up. Yesterday had been a tempestuous day; indeed, what between
buffalo, rhinoceros, and elephant, it had been very tempestuous. Having
realized this fact, I next bethought me of those magnificent tusks, and
instantly, early as it was, broke the tenth commandment. I coveted my
neighbour’s tusks, if an elephant could be said to be my neighbour _de
jure_, as certainly, so recently as the previous night, he had been _de
facto_—a much closer neighbour than I cared for, indeed. Now when you
covet your neighbour’s goods, the best thing, if not the most moral
thing, to do is to enter his house as a strong man armed, and take
them. I was not a strong man, but having recovered my eight-bore I was
armed, and so was the other strong man—the elephant with the tusks.
Consequently I prepared for a struggle to the death. In other words, I
summoned my faithful retainers, and told them that I was now going to
follow those elephants to the edge of the world, if necessary. They
showed a certain bashfulness about the business, but they did not
gainsay me, because they dared not. Ever since I had prepared with all
due solemnity to execute the rebellious Gobo they had conceived a great
respect for me.
“So I went up to bid adieu to the old head man, whom I found
alternately contemplating the ruins of his kraal and, with the able
assistance of his last wife, thrashing the jealous lady who had slept
in the mealie hut, because she was, as he declared, the fount of all
his sorrows.
“Leaving them to work a way through their domestic differences, I
levied a supply of vegetable food from the kraal in consideration of
services rendered, and left them with my blessing. I do not know how
they settled matters, because I have not seen them since.
“Then I started on the spoor of the three bulls. For a couple of miles
or so below the kraal—as far, indeed, as the belt of swamp that borders
the river—the ground is at this spot rather stony, and clothed with
scattered bushes. Rain had fallen towards the daybreak, and this fact,
together with the nature of the soil, made spooring a very difficult
business. The wounded bull had indeed bled freely, but the rain had
washed the blood off the leaves and grass, and the ground being so
rough and hard did not take the footmarks so clearly as was convenient.
However, we got along, though slowly, partly by the spoor, and partly
by carefully lifting leaves and blades of grass, and finding blood
underneath them, for the blood gushing from a wounded animal often
falls upon their inner surfaces, and then, of course, unless the rain
is very heavy, it is not washed away. It took us something over an hour
and a half to reach the edge of the marsh, but once there our task
became much easier, for the soft soil showed plentiful evidences of the
great brutes’ passage. Threading our way through the swampy land, we
came at last to a ford of the river, and here we could see where the
poor wounded animal had lain down in the mud and water in the hope of
easing himself of his pain, and could see also how his two faithful
companions had assisted him to rise again. We crossed the ford, and
took up the spoor on the further side, and followed it into the
marsh-like land beyond. No rain had fallen on this side of the river,
and the blood-marks were consequently much more frequent.
“All that day we followed the three bulls, now across open plains, and
now through patches of bush. They seemed to have travelled on almost
without stopping, and I noticed that as they went the wounded bull
recovered his strength a little. This I could see from his spoor, which
had become firmer, and also from the fact that the other two had ceased
to support him. At last evening closed in, and having travelled some
eighteen miles, we camped, thoroughly tired out.
“Before dawn on the following day we were up, and the first break of
light found us once more on the spoor. About half-past five o’clock we
reached the place where the elephants had fed and slept. The two
unwounded bulls had taken their fill, as the condition of the
neighbouring bushes showed, but the wounded one had eaten nothing. He
had spent the night leaning against a good-sized tree, which his weight
had pushed out of the perpendicular. They had not long left this place,
and could not be very far ahead, especially as the wounded bull was now
again so stiff after his night’s rest that for the first few miles the
other two had been obliged to support him. But elephants go very quick,
even when they seem to be travelling slowly, for shrub and creepers
that almost stop a man’s progress are no hindrance to them. The three
had now turned to the left, and were travelling back again in a
semicircular line toward the mountains, probably with the idea of
working round to their old feeding grounds on the further side of the
river.
“There was nothing for it but to follow their lead, and accordingly we
followed with industry. Through all that long hot day did we tramp,
passing quantities of every sort of game, and even coming across the
spoor of other elephants. But, in spite of my men’s entreaties, I would
not turn aside after these. I would have those mighty tusks or none.
“By evening we were quite close to our game, probably within a quarter
of a mile, but the bush was dense, and we could see nothing of them, so
once more we must camp, thoroughly disgusted with our luck. That night,
just after the moon rose, while I was sitting smoking my pipe with my
back against a tree, I heard an elephant trumpet, as though something
had startled it, and not three hundred yards away. I was very tired,
but my curiosity overcame my weariness, so, without saying a word to
any of the men, all of whom were asleep, I took my eight-bore and a few
spare cartridges, and steered toward the sound. The game path which we
had been following all day ran straight on in the direction from which
the elephant had trumpeted. It was narrow, but well trodden, and the
light struck down upon it in a straight white line. I crept along it
cautiously for some two hundred yards, when it opened suddenly into a
most beautiful glade some hundred yards or more in width, wherein tall
grass grew and flat-topped trees stood singly. With the caution born of
long experience I watched for a few moments before I entered the glade,
and then I saw why the elephant had trumpeted. There in the middle of
the glade stood a large maned lion. He stood quite still, making a soft
purring noise, and waving his tail to and fro. Presently the grass
about forty yards on the hither side of him gave a wide ripple, and a
lioness sprang out of it like a flash, and bounded noiselessly up to
the lion. Reaching him, the great cat halted suddenly, and rubbed her
head against his shoulder. Then they both began to purr loudly, so
loudly that I believe that in the stillness one might have heard them
two hundred yards or more away.
“After a time, while I was still hesitating what to do, either they got
a whiff of my wind, or they wearied of standing still, and determined
to start in search of game. At any rate, as though moved by a common
impulse, they bounded suddenly away, leap by leap, and vanished in the
depths of the forest to the left. I waited for a little while longer to
see if there were any more yellow skins about, and seeing none, came to
the conclusion that the lions must have frightened the elephants away,
and that I had taken my stroll for nothing. But just as I was turning
back I thought that I heard a bough break upon the further side of the
glade, and, rash as the act was, I followed the sound. I crossed the
glade as silently as my own shadow. On its further side the path went
on. Albeit with many fears, I went on too. The jungle growth was so
thick here that it almost met overhead, leaving so small a passage for
the light that I could scarcely see to grope my way along. Presently,
however, it widened, and then opened into a second glade slightly
smaller than the first, and there, on the further side of it, about
eighty yards from me, stood the three enormous elephants.
“They stood thus:—Immediately opposite and facing me was the wounded
one-tusked bull. He was leaning his bulk against a dead thorn-tree, the
only one in the place, and looked very sick indeed. Near him stood the
second bull as though keeping a watch over him. The third elephant was
a good deal nearer to me and broadside on. While I was still staring at
them, this elephant suddenly walked off and vanished down a path in the
bush to the right.
“There are now two things to be done—either I could go back to the camp
and advance upon the elephants at dawn, or I could attack them at once.
The first was, of course, by far the wiser and safer course. To engage
one elephant by moonlight and single-handed is a sufficiently rash
proceeding; to tackle three was little short of lunacy. But, on the
other hand, I knew that they would be on the march again before
daylight, and there might come another day of weary trudging before I
could catch them up, or they might escape me altogether.
“‘No,’ I thought to myself, ‘faint heart never won fair tusk. I’ll risk
it, and have a slap at them. But how?’ I could not advance across the
open, for they would see me; clearly the only thing to do was to creep
round in the shadow of the bush and try to come upon them so. So I
started. Seven or eight minutes of careful stalking brought me to the
mouth of the path down which the third elephant had walked. The other
two were now about fifty yards from me, and the nature of the wall of
bush was such that I could not see how to get nearer to them without
being discovered. I hesitated, and peeped down the path which the
elephant had followed. About five yards in, it took a turn round a
shrub. I thought that I would just have a look behind it, and advanced,
expecting that I should be able to catch a sight of the elephant’s
tail. As it happened, however, I met his trunk coming round the corner.
It is very disconcerting to see an elephant’s trunk when you expect to
see his tail, and for a moment I stood paralyzed almost under the vast
brute’s head, for he was not five yards from me. He too halted, threw
up his trunk and trumpeted preparatory to a charge. I was in for it
now, for I could not escape either to the right or left, on account of
the bush, and I did not dare turn my back. So I did the only thing that
I could do—raised the rifle and fired at the black mass of his chest.
It was too dark for me to pick a shot; I could only brown him, as it
were.
“The shot rung out like thunder on the quiet air, and the elephant
answered it with a scream, then dropped his trunk and stood for a
second or two as still as though he had been cut in stone. I confess
that I lost my head; I ought to have fired my second barrel, but I did
not. Instead of doing so, I rapidly opened my rifle, pulled out the old
cartridge from the right barrel and replaced it. But before I could
snap the breech to, the bull was at me. I saw his great trunk fly up
like a brown beam, and I waited no longer. Turning, I fled for dear
life, and after me thundered the elephant. Right into the open glade I
ran, and then, thank Heaven, just as he was coming up with me the
bullet took effect on him. He had been shot right through the heart, or
lungs, and down he fell with a crash, stone dead.
“But in escaping from Scylla I had run into the jaws of Charybdis. I
heard the elephant fall, and glanced round. Straight in front of me,
and not fifteen paces away, were the other two bulls. They were staring
about, and at that moment they caught sight of me. Then they came, the
pair of them—came like thunderbolts, and from different angles. I had
only time to snap my rifle to, lift it, and fire, almost at haphazard,
at the head of the nearest, the unwounded bull.
“Now, as you know, in the case of the African elephant, whose skull is
convex, and not concave like that of the Indian, this is always a most
risky and very frequently a perfectly useless shot. The bullet loses
itself in the masses of bone, that is all. But there is one little
vital place, and should the bullet happen to strike there, it will
follow the channel of the nostrils—at least I suppose it is that of the
nostrils—and reach the brain. And this was what happened in the present
case—the ball struck the fatal spot in the region of the eye and
travelled to the brain. Down came the great bull all of a heap, and
rolled on to his side as dead as a stone. I swung round at that instant
to face the third, the monster bull with one tusk that I had wounded
two days before. He was already almost over me, and in the dim
moonlight seemed to tower above me like a house. I lifted the rifle and
pulled at his neck. It would not go off! Then, in a flash, as it were,
I remembered that it was on the half-cock. The lock of this barrel was
a little weak, and a few days before, in firing at a cow eland, the
left barrel had jarred off at the shock of the discharge of the right,
knocking me backwards with the recoil; so after that I had kept it on
the half-cock till I actually wanted to fire it.
“I gave one desperate bound to the right, and, my lame leg
notwithstanding, I believe that few men could have made a better jump.
At any rate, it was none too soon, for as I jumped I felt the wind made
by the tremendous downward stroke of the monster’s trunk. Then I ran
for it.
“I ran like a buck, still keeping hold of my gun, however. My idea, so
far as I could be said to have any fixed idea, was to bolt down the
pathway up which I had come, like a rabbit down a burrow, trusting that
he would lose sight of me in the uncertain light. I sped across the
glade. Fortunately the bull, being wounded, could not go full speed;
but wounded or no, he could go quite as fast as I could. I was unable
to gain an inch, and away we went, with just about three feet between
our separate extremities. We were at the other side now, and a glance
served to show me that I had miscalculated and overshot the opening. To
reach it now was hopeless; I should have blundered straight into the
elephant. So I did the only thing I could do: I swerved like a course
hare, and started off round the edge of the glade, seeking for some
opening into which I could plunge. This gave me a moment’s start, for
the bull could not turn as quickly as I could, and I made the most of
it. But no opening could I see; the bush was like a wall. We were
speeding round the edge of the glade, and the elephant was coming up
again. Now he was within about six feet, and now, as he trumpeted or
rather screamed, I could feel the fierce hot blast of his breath strike
upon my head. Heavens! how it frightened me!
“We were three parts round the glade now, and about fifty yards ahead
was the single large dead thorn-tree against which the bull had been
leaning. I spurted for it; it was my last chance of safety. But spurt
as I would, it seemed hours before I got there. Putting out my right
hand, I swung round the tree, thus bringing myself face to face with
the elephant. I had not time to lift the rifle to fire, I had barely
time to cock it, and run sideways and backward, when he was on to me.
Crash! he came, striking the tree full with his forehead. It snapped
like a carrot about forty inches from the ground. Fortunately I was
clear of the trunk, but one of the dead branches struck me on the chest
as it went down and swept me to the ground. I fell upon my back, and
the elephant blundered past me as I lay. More by instinct than anything
else I lifted the rifle with one hand and pulled the trigger. It
exploded, and, as I discovered afterwards, the bullet struck him in the
ribs. But the recoil of the heavy rifle held thus was very severe; it
bent my arm up, and sent the butt with a thud against the top of my
shoulder and the side of my neck, for the moment quite paralyzing me,
and causing the weapon to jump from my grasp. Meanwhile the bull was
rushing on. He travelled for some twenty paces, and then suddenly he
stopped. Faintly I reflected that he was coming back to finish me, but
even the prospect of imminent and dreadful death could not rouse me
into action. I was utterly spent; I could not move.
“Idly, almost indifferently, I watched his movements. For a moment he
stood still, next he trumpeted till the welkin rang, and then very
slowly, and with great dignity, he knelt down. At this point I swooned
away.
“When I came to myself again I saw from the moon that I must have been
insensible for quite two hours. I was drenched with dew, and shivering
all over. At first I could not think where I was, when, on lifting my
head, I saw the outline of the one-tusked bull still kneeling some
five-and-twenty paces from me. Then I remembered. Slowly I raised
myself, and was instantly taken with a violent sickness, the result of
over-exertion, after which I very nearly fainted a second time.
Presently I grew better, and considered the position. Two of the
elephants were, as I knew, dead; but how about No. 3? There he knelt in
majesty in the lonely moonlight. The question was, was he resting, or
dead? I rose on my hands and knees, loaded my rifle, and painfully
crept a few paces nearer. I could see his eye now, for the moonlight
fell full upon it—it was open, and rather prominent. I crouched and
watched; the eyelid did not move, nor did the great brown body, or the
trunk, or the ear, or the tail—nothing moved. Then I knew that he must
be dead.
“I crept up to him, still keeping the rifle well forward, and gave him
a thump, reflecting as I did so how very near I had been to being
thumped instead of thumping. He never stirred; certainly he was dead,
though to this day I do not know if it was my random shot that killed
him, or if he died from concussion of the brain consequent upon the
tremendous shock of his contact with the tree. Anyhow, there he was.
Cold and beautiful he lay, or rather knelt, as the poet neatly puts it.
Indeed, I do not think that I have ever seen a sight more imposing in
its way than that of the mighty beast crouched in majestic death, and
shone upon by the lonely moon.
“While I stood admiring the scene, and heartily congratulating myself
upon my escape, once more I began to feel sick. Accordingly, without
waiting to examine the other two bulls, I staggered back to the camp,
which in due course I reached in safety. Everybody in it was asleep. I
did not wake them, but having swallowed a mouthful of brandy I threw
off my coat and shoes, rolled myself up in a blanket, and was soon fast
asleep.
“When I woke it was already light, and at first I thought that, like
Joseph, I had dreamed a dream. At that moment, however, I turned my
head, and quickly knew that it was no dream, for my neck and face were
so stiff from the blow of the butt-end of the rifle that it was agony
to move them. I collapsed for a minute or two. Gobo and another man,
wrapped up like a couple of monks in their blankets, thinking that I
was still asleep, were crouched over a little fire they had made, for
the morning was damp and chilly, and holding sweet converse.
“Gobo said that he was getting tired of running after elephants which
they never caught. Macumazahn (that is, myself) was without doubt a man
of parts, and of some skill in shooting, but also he was a fool. None
but a fool would run so fast and far after elephants which it was
impossible to catch, when they kept cutting the spoor of fresh ones. He
certainly was a fool, but he must not be allowed to continue in his
folly; and he, Gobo, had determined to put a stop to it. He should
refuse to accompany him any further on so mad a hunt.
“‘Yes,’ the other answered, ‘the poor man certainly was sick in his
head, and it was quite time that they checked his folly while they
still had a patch of skin left upon their feet. Moreover, he for his
part certainly did not like this country of Wambe’s, which really was
full of ghosts. Only the last night he had heard the spooks at
work—they were out shooting, at least it sounded as though they were.
It was very queer, but perhaps their lunatic of a master——’
“‘Gobo, you scoundrel!’ I shouted out at this juncture, sitting bolt
upright on the blankets, ‘stop idling there and make me some coffee.’
“Up sprang Gobo and his friend, and in half a moment were respectfully
skipping about in a manner that contrasted well with the lordly
contempt of their previous conversation. But all the time they were in
earnest in what they said about hunting the elephants any further, for
before I had finished my coffee they came to me in a body, and said
that if I wanted to follow those elephants I must follow them myself,
for they would not go.
“I argued with them, and affected to be much put out. The elephants
were close at hand, I said; I was sure of it; I had heard them trumpet
in the night.
“‘Yes,’ answered the men mysteriously, ‘they too had heard things in
the night, things not nice to hear; they had heard the spooks out
shooting, and no longer would they remain in a country so vilely
haunted.’
“‘It was nonsense,’ I replied. ‘If ghosts went out shooting, surely
they would use air-guns and not black powder, and one would not hear an
air-gun. Well, if they were cowards, and would not come, of course I
could not force them to, but I would make a bargain with them. They
should follow those elephants for one half-hour more, then if we failed
to come upon them I would abandon the pursuit, and we would go straight
to Wambe, chief of the Matuku, and give him hongo.’
“To this compromise the men agreed readily. Accordingly about
half-an-hour later we struck our camp and started, and notwithstanding
my aches and bruises, I do not think that I ever felt in better spirits
in my life. It is something to wake up in the morning and remember that
in the dead of the night, single-handed, one has given battle to and
overthrown three of the largest elephants in Africa, slaying them with
three bullets. Such a feat to my knowledge had never been done before,
and on that particular morning I felt a very ‘tall man of my hands’
indeed. The only thing I feared was, that should I ever come to tell
the story nobody would believe it, for when a strange tale is told by a
hunter, people are apt to think it is necessarily a lie, instead of
being only probably so.[*]
[*] For the satisfaction of any who may be so disbelieving as to take
this view of Mr. Quatermain’s story, the Editor may state that a
gentleman with whom he is acquainted, and whose veracity he believes to
be beyond doubt, not long ago described to him how he chanced to kill
_four_ African elephants with four consecutive bullets. Two of these
elephants were charging him simultaneously, and out of the four three
were killed with the head shot, a very uncommon thing in the case of
the African elephant.—Editor.
“Well, we passed on till, having crossed the first glade where I had
seen the lions, we reached the neck of bush that separated it from the
second glade, where the dead elephants were. And here I began to take
elaborate precautions, amongst others ordering Gobo to keep some yards
ahead and look out sharp, as I thought that the elephants might be
about. He obeyed my instructions with a superior smile, and pushed
ahead. Presently I saw him pull up as though he had been shot, and
begin to snap his fingers faintly.
“‘What is it?’ I whispered.
“‘The elephant, the great elephant with one tusk kneeling down.’
“I crept up beside him. There knelt the bull as I had left him last
night, and there too lay the other bulls.
“‘Do these elephants sleep?’ I whispered to the astonished Gobo.
“‘Yes, Macumazahn, they sleep.’
“‘Nay, Gobo, they are dead.’
“‘Dead? How can they be dead? Who killed them?’
“‘What do people call me, Gobo?’
“‘They call you Macumazahn.’
“‘And what does Macumazahn mean?’
“‘It means the man who keeps his eyes open, the man who gets up in the
night.’
“‘Yes, Gobo, and I am that man. Look, you idle, lazy cowards; while you
slept last night I rose, and alone I hunted those great elephants, and
slew them by the moonlight. To each of them I gave one bullet and only
one, and it fell dead. Look,’ and I advanced into the glade, ‘here is
my spoor, and here is the spoor of the great bull charging after me,
and there is the tree that I took refuge behind; see, the elephant
shattered it in his charge. Oh, you cowards, you who would give up the
chase while the blood spoor steamed beneath your nostrils, see what I
did single-handed while you slept, and be ashamed.’
“‘_Ou!_’ said the men, ‘_ou!_ Koos! Koos y umcool!’ (Chief, great
Chief!) And then they held their tongues, and going up to the three
dead beasts, gazed upon them in silence.
“But after that those men looked upon me with awe as being almost more
than mortal. No mere man, they said, could have slain those three
elephants alone in the night-time. I never had any further trouble with
them. I believe that if I had told them to jump over a precipice and
that they would take no harm, they would have believed me.
“Well, I went up and examined the bulls. Such tusks as they had I never
saw and never shall see again. It took us all day to cut them out; and
when they reached Delagoa Bay, as they did ultimately, though not in my
keeping, the single tusk of the big bull scaled one hundred and sixty
pounds, and the four other tusks averaged ninety-nine and a half
pounds—a most wonderful, indeed an almost unprecedented, lot of
ivory.[*] Unfortunately I was forced to saw the big tusk in two,
otherwise we could not have carried it.”
[*] The largest elephant tusk of which the Editor has any certain
knowledge scaled one hundred and fifty pounds.
“Oh, Quatermain, you barbarian!” I broke in here, “the idea of spoiling
such a tusk! Why, I would have kept it whole if I had been obliged to
drag it myself.”
“Oh yes, young man,” he answered, “it is all very well for you to talk
like that, but if you had found yourself in the position which it was
my privilege to occupy a few hours afterwards, it is my belief that you
would have thrown the tusks away altogether and taken to your heels.”
“Oh,” said Good, “so that isn’t the end of the yarn? A very good yarn,
Quatermain, by the way—I couldn’t have made up a better one myself.”
The old gentleman looked at Good severely, for it irritated him to be
chaffed about his stories.
“I don’t know what you mean, Good. I don’t see that there is any
comparison between a true story of adventure and the preposterous tales
which you invent about ibex hanging by their horns. No, it is not the
end of the story; the most exciting part is to come. But I have talked
enough for to-night; and if you go on in that way, Good, it will be
some time before I begin again.”
“Sorry I spoke, I’m sure,” said Good, humbly. “Let’s have a split to
show that there is no ill-feeling.” And they did.