Our advance, although conducted with the same stealth that marks the movement of a cat towards its prey, was still not sufficiently inaudible to escape the refined senses of the elephant. He ceased feeding, and remained for some minutes like a statue. A novice would have laughed had he been told that a wild elephant of twelve feet high was within a few yards of him; the only indication the animal gave of his presence was a slight blowing through the trunk as the unsavoury flavour of my warm Kaffirs was wafted to his sensitive olfactories, or as a dried stick cracked under his spongy feet. The density of the underwood, which was caused by the festoons of wild vine and creepers, prevented our seeing more than a yard or two in many parts; and though the branches directly over us were shaken by the movement of the monster's body, yet we could make out nothing but a dark mass of bush: to have fired thus, therefore, would have been folly. Monyosi had frequently eaten little bits of his charmed wood: I dared not speak to ask him its specific, but I afterwards learnt it was infallible as a preventive against injury from wild beasts. My own man, Inyovu, was as pale as a black man could be, and his whole frame appeared to suffer much from cold. I dare say, had I counted my own pulse, I should have found it quicker than usual. The elephant's patience was the first to be exhausted: with a half-growl, half-trumpet, he forced himself through the tangled brushwood towards us. He came in sight so close to me, that the muzzle of my rifle was considerably elevated when I fired. With a turn and rush that a harlequin might have envied, I soon got over a hundred yards, the line to run having been determined on previous to firing. It would not have been wise to stay and look if one were being pursued; run first, and look afterwards, was the approved plan. It is a poor sort of courage, that fears taking precautions, lest its truth should be questioned. There was a crash somewhere behind me as I ran, but I could not tell in which direction; seeing, therefore, that I was likely to come against others of the herd if I continued my retreat, I took up a position with my Kaffirs beside a large thick tree, and proceeded to load my rifle, which I did not accomplish without a reproof from Monyosi for ramming down the charge whilst the butt of the gun was on the ground. We could now hear the troop of elephants rapidly retreating through the forest. The loud crashing of the thick branches showed the alarming sound of a rifle had caused a headlong rush to be made, that sounded like a rolling fire of musketry.