"Selim killed two!" echoed Kalulu, with surprise. "What! little Selim
my brother?"
"The same," answered Moto.
"Eyah, eyah!" murmured the group, while Kalulu seemed lost in
astonishment, and could not utter a word more.
"Selim stands waiting to shew them to his brother, Kalulu," said Moto.
"Oh, I shall come. Why Selim is a hero, a lion, an elephant! Is he
not, Moto?"
"He is a brave young Arab, and the son of an Arab chief," answered Moto.
When the young chief started off, all but a few Watuta, who remained to
extract the tusks, followed him to see the wonderful three dead
elephants.
In the same position in which he had first fallen lay Selim's first
prize, with his tusks half buried in the ground. Kalulu gazed at the
wide wound in his head, put his fist into it until it was buried up to
the wrist, and then turned to Moto with wondering eyes, and said:
"Kalulu has seen dead men in his father's village, pierced to the heart
with the leaden balls which the rifles of Kisesa threw, but what gun is
this that makes such big holes in the elephant's head?"
Then Moto told him that Selim had fired the two barrels of the gun at
once, at such a short distance from the elephant, that the two big
bullets went into the head as one, and that this was the reason there
was such a big hole, which quite satisfied the young chief.
Leaving ten men to extract the tusks, Kalulu proceeded to where Selim
and Simba stood, close to the former's second prize; and here, again,
Kalulu saw the wide rent and savage wound in the same spot as that found
in the first elephant.
Kalulu sprang on Selim's neck, and embraced him warmly, while the Watuta
gazed at Selim as on one they had never seen before, with surprise and
unlimited admiration.
By evening the tusks had all been extracted from the elephants, and
great portions of the meat were carried to camp, especially the feet,
the hearts, and livers, and ribs, where, before blazing fire-piles, the
meat was set to roasting, while the adventures of the day were rehearsed
over and over, with new additions each time, until midnight of that
eventful day came and sealed all eyes in deep slumber.
They moved further south, and in less than two weeks the party had
killed twenty elephants, which so loaded them with ivory, that they were
obliged to return towards home, unable to carry more.