The elephant never forgets, and Muztagh was monarch of his breed. He
turned back two paces, and struck with his trunk. Ahmad Din was knocked
aside as the wind whips a straw.
For an instant elephant and man stood front to front. To the left of
them the gates of the stockade dropped shut behind the herd. The
elephant stood with trunk slightly lifted, for the moment motionless.
The long-haired man who saved him stood lifting upstretched arms.
It was such as scene as one might remember in an old legend, wherein
beasts and men were brothers, or such as sometimes might steal, likely
something remembered from another age, into a man's dreams. Nowhere but
in India, where men have a little knowledge of the mystery of the
elephant, could it have taken place at all.
For Langur Dass was speaking to my lord the elephant:
"Take me with thee, Muztagh! Monarch of the hills! Thou and I are not of
the world of men, but of the jungle and the rain, the silence, and the
cold touch of rivers. We are brothers, Muztagh. O beloved, wilt thou
leave me here to die!"
The elephant slowly turned his head and looked scornfully at the group
of beaters bearing down on Langur Dass, murder shining no less from
their knives than from their lighted eyes.
"Take me," the old man pleaded; "thy herd is gone."
The elephant seemed to know what he was asking. He had lifted him to his
great shoulders many times, in the last days of his captivity. And
besides, his old love for Langur Dass had never been forgotten.
Pages:
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155