And so it turned out. The eight Cornaks with their four elephants went into the neighbouring forests; and when, as soon happened, they had found a herd of wild elephants, they did with them exactly as they had learnt to do at home. The tame elephants were sent without their attendants into the midst of the herd of wild ones, by whom they were at first greeted with some signs of surprise, but were ultimately received into companionship. The crafty animals then fixed their attention upon the leader of the herd, the strongest and handsomest bull, caressed him, whisked the flies off him, but in the meantime bound, with some strong cord they had taken with them, one of his legs to a stout tree. Having done this, they uttered their cry of alarm--a sharp trumpet-like sound--and ran off as if they had discovered some danger. On this signal, the Indians rushed forward with loud cries and the firing of guns, and thus caused the whole herd to rush off after the tame elephants. The poor prisoner, of course, could not run off with the rest, desperately as he strained at the ropes; and the Indians allowed him to stamp and trumpet, without for a while troubling themselves about him. Their next care was to follow the track of the escaped herd. In the course of an hour they had again crept up to it, to find that in the meantime the four tame elephants had repeated the same trick with a new victim, which was also fettered and then left in the same manner. In the course of the day three more elephants shared the same fate; and by that time the herd appeared to have grown suspicious, for their betrayers returned alone to their keepers. Now first was a visit paid to the five captives, among whom was a female with a yearling about the size of a half-grown calf. The tame elephants went straight to the captives straining at the ropes, and bound their fore-feet tightly together. This was not done without furious resistance on the part of the betrayed beasts; but this resistance was overcome in a most brutal way by strokes of the trunk and by bites. Thereupon the merciless captors busied themselves removing from within their victims' reach everything that is pleasant to an elephant's palate--grass, bushes, and tree-twigs; and what their trunks could not do they enabled the keepers to do with axe and hatchet by dragging the captives down upon their sides. When night came, all five captives were securely bound and deprived of every possibility of getting food. They were watched, however, to secure them from being attacked by lions or leopards. The next morning the tame elephants again visited their captive brethren one after the other, helped the fallen ones to get up--which was not effected without a good deal of thrashing and pushing--and then again left them to their fate.