When, a quarter of an hour previously, the first elephant had been
seen to fall, and the second, bent on vengeance, had continued his
work of uprooting the tree, MM. Périères and de Morin had
imperatively ordered their companions to take to flight, and scatter
themselves in the forest or the clearing. The Arab interpreter and
the Dinka soldiers obeyed him; as for Joseph, he had anticipated his
master's orders. M. Delange was desirous of remaining with his
friends, but he had been made to understand that, as he was rather a
bad shot, his rifle would be of more use in the hands of M. Périères
or M. de Morin. In addition to this, if he refused to take himself
off. Miss Beatrice Poles, who for the time being appeared inclined to
exhibit a marked preference for him, would be loth to leave him, and
it was necessary to get rid of her. This coquettish Englishwoman had,
in order to make a startling impression on the colour-loving blacks,
for some days past endued herself in a skirt of brilliant red, to
which, by way of contrast, she had added the bluest of blue veils,
and as the African elephant, like the bull of Spain, is driven wild
with rage by garments of too vivid a hue, M. Delange, at the earnest
request of his friends, and for the common safety, including that of
the intrepid Miss Poles herself, withdrew with her to a convenient
distance.
Madame de Guéran alone declined positively to seek safety in flight,
and expressed her determination to share the fate of MM. de Morin and
Périères. She maintained that she had no right to leave them in the
hour of danger, and she affected to believe, with some show of
reason, that they would defend themselves all the better if they had
at the same time to protect her.
Consequently Madame de Guéran and her two friends, alone, were
exposed to the elephant's attack. Notwithstanding his numerous
wounds, the animal came impetuously on, and his strength did not
appear to be failing him. As for his rage, it knew no bounds.
MM. de Morin and Périères, as we have already said, had fired away
their last cartridge, and all they had to do now, as the time for
flight was past and gone, was to await the onslaught of the elephant,
as calmly as they could, trusting to their hunting knives to rid them
of their assailant.
Laura de Guéran, whom they had placed between them, stood motionless
and calm, her mouth half open, and her eyes fixed firmly on the
advancing foe. She was marvellously lovely at that moment, and her
two champions, in spite of the fact that death was staring them in
the face, could not help looking at her with admiration. They seemed
as if they were enjoying the prospect of dying by the side of her
they loved, hand in hand, their eyes fixed on her's, joined to her in
death.
The elephant rushed straight on, without wavering or deviating from
his course, and already his three victims were flecked with the blood
which he tossed into the air with his trunk, and which fell like rain
drops in front of him. He no longer appeared to their affrighted eyes
to belong to this world. He was some nameless monster, some
supernatural mammoth, against whom mortals could not contend.
Suddenly the ground shook beneath them, as if struck by an enormous
mass of rock which, loosened from a neighbouring mountain, had rolled
impetuously down and buried itself at their feet.
The elephant, weakened by loss of blood, mortally wounded by the last
shots fired at him, and, for some moments past, sustained merely by
his angry rage, had fallen prone to the ground, at the very instant
when his vengeance was on the point of being satisfied. For a moment
Madame de Guéran, M. Périères, and M. de Morin remained almost in a
state of stupefaction. Death had been so near to them that they
doubted the fact of their own existence. It seemed impossible that
they could have been saved so miraculously, and yet they were alive.
And there, too, lay their enemy, so formidable, not a moment since,
but now powerless, motionless, dead. His screams no longer filled the
air, his tread no longer shook the ground, his life-blood was running
in streams on the ground, and already formed an ensanguined pool
around the Europeans.
And now, from all sides, there was a general rush to rejoin them and
wish them joy of their deliverance, Miss Poles and M. Delange being
the first to arrive. Notwithstanding the entreaties of MM. de Morin
and Périères, they had not gone far away, but had halted in a
neighbouring thicket, ready to die in their turn, if the elephant had
sacrificed his first victims.
The fears she had entertained for her own safety and that of her
companions, and her _tête-à-tête_ with M. Delange, at a time when
their hearts were stirred with no ordinary emotion, had, as it were,
softened Miss Poles. Her step was not so determined, her long neck
had lost its stiffness, and her head was inclined towards the Doctor,
ready to find a resting-place on his shoulder. Her very look, toned
down by her blue spectacles, had in it somewhat of languor and
indecision, as if she were regretting that she had once more returned
to earth, instead of having taken to herself wings to fly with M.
Delange to realms above.
The hunting party was once more complete, with the sole exception of
Joseph, who had not answered to the summons to reassemble. Where had
he hidden himself? That was a question which nobody could answer. He
could not have taken refuge in the depths of the forest; he was too
great a coward for that. Had he sought an asylum in some tree? That
hypothesis was scouted at once, for his corpulence, and his absolute
incapacity for anything approaching to agility, put any such
gymnastic exercises out of the question.
For ten minutes he was shouted for in all directions, and real fears
for his safety were making themselves felt, when he appeared,
looking, for all the world, as if he were a victim to St. Vitus's
dance, practising the most extraordinary contortions, raising his
arms, only to let them fall again, and beating his shoulders, his
chest, his legs, and even his too conspicuous stomach. Every now and
then he gave himself a violent shake, just as a dog does when he
comes out of the water. There was, nevertheless, no sign of damp
about him; his white blouse looked perfectly dry; only it was dotted
over with reddish blotches, which moved about and seemed alive. Not
content with this gymnastic frenzy, he uttered a series of agonizing
cries, not quite so terrible as those of the elephants, but far more
shrill and discordant.
A general rush was made towards him, and it was then seen that he was
being eaten alive by an army of red ants, the plague of Africa. They
were swarming all over him, in knots or clusters, finding their way
even into his beard and hair. They settled on his face, in his ears,
crept down his neck and under his clothes, and, not satisfied with
mere curiosity, were biting him viciously, tearing his flesh, and
burying themselves in his skin.
When, an hour previously, he had run away, he did not know what
direction to take. He was afraid of the forest because it was so
dark, he dreaded the thickets on account of the thorns, and he
shirked the long grass as not offering a refuge sufficiently sure. He
was running here and there, having completely lost his head, when he
caught sight of a hillock, about a yard high and three yards broad,
near a tree. Towards this he plunged, head downwards, thinking, like
the ostrich, that if he hid his head nobody would see him. Moreover,
he thought he would be completely concealed behind the hillock, but,
alas! as soon as he set foot on it it gave way, as if it were liquid,
and in an instant Joseph disappeared from view.
He had, unfortunately, stumbled on one of those extensive ant hills
which abound in the forests, in the midst of the high grass and
always at the foot of a tree. All those who have travelled in
equatorial Africa complain of these ants, of which there are some
twenty species. Livingstone says that they do not know what fear is,
and that they attack all animals, large and small, with equal fury.
The Marquis de Compiégne, who died recently at Cairo, calls them
_bashikouais_, and says that their nippers are like the hooks used in
gudgeon fishing, and that they bite so viciously that, as a rule,
their bodies alone can be pulled away; their heads remain in the
wound.
Happily for Joseph the majority of the blacks are very partial to
these termites. They fry or boil them, mixing them with grains of
durra or eleusine, and eat them out of the palms of their hands with
the greatest gusto. Consequently, the natives seized on Joseph with
the double object of ridding him of his enemies and appeasing their
own appetites. They carried their courtesy so far as to drag M. de
Morin's valet behind a tree and strip him, first of all shaking out
his clothes, and then reaping a second harvest from off his body. The
spoil was then collected in a basket and reserved for the evening
meal.
But night was coming on apace. It was absolutely necessary to gain
the edge of the forest with all speed and seek a resting place for
the night, and so the Europeans, preceded by their escort, set out on
their return.