Elephants -- Juvenile literature; India -- Juvenile literature
Suddenly, there was a bark followed by a deafening roar and then
the thud of a leaping body falling on the ground. The tiger had
found his kill. You know the tiger has three different calls--the
hunger wail which is like a terrible sound cutting the jungle
with hate; then the snorting bark of the tiger which means
that he is nearing his prey; and then through the stillness of
the jungle, one hears his third call, the triumphant roar of the
kill, which means that he has found his prey. This roar has a
terrible effect on the victim; it paralyzes him with terror, and
like a lightning flash, along with the roar, the tiger falls upon
his prey. This is just what was happening now a short while
before sunrise. The tiger growled now and then to announce that
he had had his dinner and then other small animals came up and
fell upon the prey after he had left it.
All the animals who had taken shelter in their lairs and holes
during the rain were now beginning to come out. This morning
there was no silence in the jungle; in the small hours all the
animals were eager to get something to eat, so that by day-break
they could go to sleep with something in their stomachs. When the
dawn came, I saw Kari standing under the tree in the thick
twilight under the foliage. I came down on the ground to find
traces of the struggle of the night. The rain had washed it all
away, but as I got up and touched Kari's neck, he winced and I
knew that the marks he bore were the only testimony of the
battle.
We went back across the river, and found Kopee there, wet and
miserable. He was glad to get down from the tree and get on the
elephant's back and feel the sunlight on his skin. I urged Kari
to get him something to eat, but he would not hear of it, so we
hastened back toward the village. On our way home, I verified the
law of the jungle, for Kari had really developed a slight stench.
You may say that it was the wound that gave the odor, but I do
not think so. When he went to war and battled with another
elephant, he must have hated as well as feared, and the smell of
fear and hate was upon him. It took nearly a fortnight to wash
the stench away from him, and you must remember that it was not
the bathing in the water that did it. It was in the gentle care
and friendship of the village that Kari gradually forgot to hate
his enemy.
CHAPTER VII
THE TIGER HUNT
I have told you that Kari was not a hunting elephant. After that
experience in the jungle, however, he seemed to be above all fear
and surprise. On many occasions he showed such dignity and
composure that one could not recognize in him the old, nervous
beast. Apparently that battle with the wild elephant gave him
such confidence in his own strength that from that time on no
incident could surprise him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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