However, Harry used to go on making old _Nabob_ kneel down, or shake hands, or curl up his trunk, or lift him up, finishing off by going up to his head, lifting one great ear, saying they understood one another, whispering a few words, and then shutting the ear up again, so as the words shouldn't be lost before they got into the elephant's brain, as I explained, because they'd got a long way to go. Then Harry would lie down, and let the great beast walk backwards and forwards all over him, lifting his great feet so carefully, and setting them down close to Harry, but never touching him, except one day when, just as the great beast was passing his foot over Harry's breast, a voice called out something in Hindustani--and I knew who it was, though I didn't see-- when _Nabob_ puts his feet down on Harry's chest, and Lizzy gave a great scream, and we all thought the poor chap would be crushed; but not he: the great beast was took by surprise, but only for an instant, and, in his slow quiet way, he steps aside, and then touches Harry all over with his trunk; and there was no more performance that day. "I've got my knife into Master Chunder for that," says Harry to me, "for I'll swear that was his voice." And I started to find he had known it. "I wouldn't quarrel with him," I says quietly, "for it strikes me he's got his knife into you." "You've no idea," says Harry, "what a nip it was. I thought it was all over; but all the same, the poor brute didn't mean it, I'd swear." STORY ONE, CHAPTER FOUR. Who could have thought just then that all that nonsense of Harry Lant's with the elephant was shaping itself for our good, but so it was, as you shall by-and-by hear. The march continued, matters seeming to go on very smoothly--but only seeming, mind you, for let alone that we were all walking upon a volcano, there was a good deal of unpleasantry brewing. Let alone my feeling that, somehow or another, Harry Lant was not so true a mate to me as he used to be, there was a good deal wrong between Captain Dyer and Lieutenant Leigh, and it soon seemed plain that there was much more peace and comfort in our camp a week earlier than there was at the time of which I am now writing.