a second shot failing to elucidate the matter, he swung round and crashed away across the gully, while number two bolted straight ahead. I rained shot into him while he swerved round and followed in the wake of his companion. Then I dashed along the side of the slope, stumbling, tripping, rolling, and diving over grass that I could not force my way through, till a sudden drop of 10 ft. landed me face first on the bed of a stream, invisible above through the grass, but painfully tangible below. Fortunately my rifle did not suffer proportionately, and scrambling out I reached a small ridge from which I could see my elephant standing about three hundred yards off. Again I fusilladed him till out of range, and then followed, falling twice to the elephant’s once. He was nearly spent, but managed to reach some extra long grass, where I lost sight of him for some time, till at length he crawled out into the shade of a tree under the opposite bank. The gorge was narrow at this point, so that he was not more than one hundred yards off when I reopened the bombardment. For a long time he took the phut-phut of the bullets without showing the slightest emotion. Then suddenly over he went like a tree under the axe. He struggled to his feet once more, only to fall for the last time under the continued hail. Cutting across the dip, I climbed on to the bank about twenty yards above him; but the grass was so dense that I could not see him, although considerably above the level of the tangle where he was lying. His great sobs told me that all was over, and anxious to put him out of his misery, I went down, having to approach within two yards before I could see him, and finished him off with the 10-bore, his head being invisible. To my amazement he had only one tusk, 7 ft. 9 in., and 98 lbs.; and as I was sure that I had seen two tusks, I came to the conclusion that this must be number two, and that number one had dropped at the same time that I did. So following back on the spoor, I came on the other elephant, lying four hundred yards from where I had first hit him, but, lo and behold! he also had only one tusk, 7 ft. 7 in., and 86 lbs. So certain was I of having seen two tusks that I followed his spoor back, thinking that possibly there might have been a third hidden by the grass, but it was not so, and to this day I believe he took the other tusk off and threw it away, as a sort of Jonah! On arriving at camp I found that letters and tomatoes had arrived from Toro. Our pagasi had attempted their old games about three days’ journey south of the Albert Edward and had been attacked with the loss of twenty men, amongst them Sulimani, the root of all the disturbances. His successor in office, who, like other gentlemen of his kidney, combined loudness of talk in times of peace with extraordinary fleetness of foot in times of danger, was the first to bring the news to Toro. *CHAPTER XVI.*