Kari the Elephant Part 2

The following morning long before day-break, I heard nothing but the beat, beat, beat of unknown feet on the dusky pavement of Benares. It seemed as though the stillness of the night were hurrying away. I left my animals where they were and went in quest of these beating feet. There is something sinister in this walk of the Hindu. The Hindu walks with a great deal of poise, in fact, very much like an elephant, but he also has the agility of the panther. I did not realize it until that early morning when I heard the moving feet, as one hears dogs on the hurrying heels of a stag.

Soon I reached the river bank where I saw thousands and thousands of pilgrims crowding the steps of the Ghaut, the staircase leading to the river, bathing and waiting to greet the dawn. As I followed their example and took my bath, there arose over the swaying crowd and the beating feet, a murmur like the spray of foam on the seash.o.r.e after the breakers have dashed against the beach. Then the day broke like two horses of livid light rushing through the air. In the tropics the day-break is very sudden. Hardly had those streaks of light spent themselves through the sky and over the waters, when a golden glow fell upon the faces of the people and they raised their hands in a gesture of benediction, greeting the morning sun which rose like a mountain of crimson under a tide of gold. All of us said our morning prayer, thousands of voices intoning together.

I could not stay at the Ghaut very long, however. I knew my animals would be looking for me, so I hastened back. Lo and behold, this sight greeted me! The monkey was sitting on the neck of the elephant, and Kari, who had never been accustomed to that sort of thing was running all around, raising his trunk and bending it backwards to reach the monkey in frantic efforts to shake him off. The one spot that an elephant cannot shake, however, is his neck, so the monkey stayed there perfectly calm, looking into s.p.a.ce, secure in his seat.

I shouted to Kari to stop, and seeing me, he came rushing towards me, trembling. He made an effort to shake Kopee off, but the monkey was glued to his neck. I swore at Kopee and told him to get off. He looked down at me as if nothing had happened. I, too, was very irritated, for even I had never seen a monkey on an elephant's neck. That is considered very improper. I threw a stone at the monkey and he jumped from the elephant's neck, went straight up a tree and stayed there. I patted Kari's back and tried to soothe him. Then I took him by the ear and we walked into town.

Kari loved human beings; the more he saw them, the happier he felt. He glided by them like a human child. I was very proud of him and his behavior. As we went on our way, a mouse ran out of a hole in the foundations of a house in front of us. Kari turned around, curled up his trunk, put it in his mouth and ran. You see elephants are not afraid of anything except mice, for a mouse can crawl into an elephant's trunk and disappear in his head. I was humiliated beyond measure at Kari's behavior. He did not stop till he reached the open ground which we had left half an hour before. The monkey was still sitting in the tree. Seeing us, he shook a purse at me. He had stolen somebody's purse and was holding it in his hands waiting for it to be ransomed.

Monkeys are very much like bandits. Once, I remember, my little sister who was two months old, was lying in a basket on the veranda. Suddenly we heard her crying, and going out on the veranda found that she was not there. Basket and all had disappeared. Then we looked up at a tree and there was an enormous baboon looking down at us, while with one hand he held the basket, which was resting on a branch. My father, however, knew what to do. He sent a servant at once to the bazaar, and in the meantime brought all of the fruit in the house and spread it on the floor of the veranda. The monkey shook his head, meaning that was not ransom enough for him. Very soon the servant returned with an enormous quant.i.ty of bananas. The baboon immediately came down, and it was remarkable how he brought down the basket without upsetting it.

My mother, all this while, was weeping silently, leaning against the door. But now her grief was turned to gladness, for lo, and behold, there was the baby asleep in the basket on the veranda, while the baboon sat on a pile of bananas giving a strange monkey call to other monkeys.

Scarcely had we taken the baby into the house and shut the gla.s.s doors of the veranda, when we heard monkeys hooting and calling from all directions, leaping from tree to tree and falling with a great thud on our roof. In ten minutes the veranda became a regular parliament of monkeys chattering over their dinners.

After this we were very careful about the baby. Every time she was put out, a man or woman with a stick always watched over her.

Remembering now what had happened to my sister years ago, I called to the men of the caravan who had not yet started and told them the monkey had the purse. True enough, one of them was accusing his servant of having stolen his purse. I told them to buy some bananas and leave them under the tree, and in the course of the day the monkey would come down, leave the purse and take the bananas. I had been humiliated by my elephant, and now being disgusted with my monkey, I took Kari into town again. This time I had my _ankus_ with me, so that in case he should run away again I could p.r.i.c.k his neck and make him behave.

We went by jewelers' shops where they were cutting diamonds, and stopped in front of the goldsmith's door. Seeing us wait there, the smith came out. "What do you want, do you want gold rings for your elephant's tusks?" You know they put rings on elephant's tusks as human beings put gold in their teeth.

"His tusks have just begun to sprout; they're too beautiful to spoil with rings yet," I answered.

"But my rings always make tusks more beautiful," was his retort.

I answered, "All the city folk think that what they do makes everything beautiful. Why don't they make their dirty city beautiful?"

The smith was angry. "If thou be not a buyer of gold, nor a vendor of silver, tarry not at my door; I have no time for beggars."

As we trotted off, I called back, "I do not sell silver, nor do I buy gold, but when my elephant grows up, he will have such tusks that you will cast eyes of envy on them. But this elephant will live more than one hundred and twenty-five years and thou shalt be dead by then, and so there will be no chance of soiling his ivory by buying thy gold."

We walked on very silently through the city, and then of a sudden a pack of dogs were upon us. We knew not whence they had come.

Kari was as dignified as a mountain; he never noticed them, but the less attention he paid to them, the more audacious the dogs grew. They came after us and I did not know what to do, as I did not even have a stone to throw at them. In a few moments, we were hemmed in by packs of dogs. Quickly now, Kari turned round and in an instant lifted a dog into the air with his trunk. As the dog would have been dashed into bits, I yelled into his ear, "Brother, brother, do not kill him, but let him down gently, he will not bite you."

At this moment the dog gave such a terrible cry of pain as the trunk was coming down that Kari stopped and slowly brought him to the ground. The dog, however, was already dead; the pressure of the trunk had killed him, and the other dogs, seeing his fate, had already run away.

Kari walked rapidly out of the city and I was heart-sick. He went straight to the river bank and with great difficulty walked down the steps of the Ghaut and buried all except his trunk in the water. He stood there knowing that I knew that he had done something wrong and he was trying to cleanse himself of it. I, too, took my bath.

Late in the afternoon, we went back and found Kopee still sitting on the same tree and looking for us, as the caravan had left long ago. Judging by the banana peels under the trees, we realized he had had his dinner. Kari and I, however, were very hungry and we were both sick of the city. We did not want to see it again, so I called to the monkey to follow and urged the elephant to go on to the nearest forest. Kopee, with one leap, jumped on my neck as I sat on the elephant's back.

This ended Kari's expedition to the city. It is better for animals to be where the jungle is, for the jungle is sweeter and kinder than that wilderness of stones--the city.

CHAPTER V

THE JUNGLE SPIRIT

It took us much longer to return home. We lost nearly twenty-four hours in a jungle where we had the strangest experiences of our lives. We had already covered half the distance when one day at noon we reached the river across which lay the jungle. It was so hot that Kari would not go any further. The moment he smelled the moist earth of the river bank, he literally ran into the water and lay there. Kopee and I had to sit on his back, while the waves of the river played around us as the waves of the sea play around an island. Kari kept his trunk above the water, and when he moved we almost fell off his back. The monkey clung to me, for, as you know, monkeys do not know how to swim. There are two reasons why monkeys are afraid of the water; not only are they unable to swim because the fingers of their hands are not webbed together as are ducks' toes, but being accustomed to go through the air by leaping from branch to branch, they think that they should leap from place to place in the water.

Seeing that the elephant was wayward, I told Kopee to hold on to my head. Then I swam ash.o.r.e and waited for the elephant to come out. Now that we were off his back, he raised himself a little above the water and began to draw vast quant.i.ties of water up his trunk and snorted it out at the monkey who was running up and down the sh.o.r.e, chattering fiercely and keeping at a safe distance to avoid being drenched.

This shows that elephants have a sense of humor. They always know where to keep a monkey, and it is the monkey's business to know when the elephant is going to indulge in humor.

As elephants do not know that monkeys cannot swim, I was afraid that if Kopee was not careful, Kari might throw him into the river for fun, and that would have been the end of him.

I soon forgot the elephant and the monkey, however, and fell asleep on the river bank. I was awakened by a terrible cry from the monkey and a trumpeting from the elephant. I sat up with a start and I saw Kopee sitting on the ground shivering with terror, and Kari standing in front of him, waving his trunk in the air and trumpeting for all he was worth. I lay on the ground and lifted myself on my elbows. Through the elephant's legs I saw a great snake, right under him, held almost between his fore-legs. My blood congealed in terror. Of course Kari was five years old; his skin was so thick that the cobra could never bite deep enough to bury its poisonous fangs in his arteries. The monkey was hypnotized with fear, but he could neither run away, nor go forward, nor come to me. He sat there shivering with terror.

I crept slyly around the elephant and approached Kopee. I knew that if I touched him, he would turn around and bite me. He was so frightened that anything that touched him would mean to his excited brain only the sting of the snake. The idea that he would be stung to death had taken possession of the whole animal.

I could now see what had happened. The elephant had stepped on the middle of the snake. Its back was broken and it could not move, but there was life in the rest of its body and it was standing erect like a sharp column of ebony, its black hood with a white mark on it spread out as large as the palm of a man's hand. Of course, it could not stay in that position long. It swayed and almost fell to the ground. The moment that happened, Kari raised his foot and put it down on the snake's neck. But the snake lifted up its head in such a way that whenever there was a chance for the elephant to put his foot on its head it would immediately raise itself on its broken back. Its agony must have been great, yet it would not give in for a long time.

As the snake could not move with its back broken and the foot of the elephant still on it, I knew I had better go and kill it with a stick. As I approached it with my stick, the monkey's eyes which had been fixed on the snake, suddenly moved. He looked at me and bounded off with a piercing, chattering yell towards the nearest tree. The spirit of terror that had held him hypnotized so long was broken at last, for he had seen someone who could kill the snake.

The moment the monkey bounded off, the snake stung the elephant's toe nails, those h.o.r.n.y plates around his feet. This is a vital spot, as the arteries come very near the surface. Knowing this, Kari raised his foot. Evidently he was not hurt, but I was not sure how long he could stand on three legs. I was also afraid that he would fall and bring his trunk near the snake, and any snake can poison an elephant by stinging the end of his trunk. I hit the snake on the head with my stick, but instead of striking his head, the stick slipped down that ebony column which was still standing erect. Fortunately, in order to avert the next blow, the snake fell on his side. That very instant the up-raised foot of the elephant was on his head.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THAT VERY INSTANT THE UP-RAISED FOOT OF THE ELEPHANT WAS ON HIS HEAD]

Kari walked away and pawed the sand with his feet to cleanse them. I thought of calling to Kopee who had taken refuge on a tree-top, but I was so anxious to know whether the elephant's foot was hurt or not, that I followed him about until he let me look at it. I was relieved to see that the skin of his foot had not been broken.

Then I called to the monkey to come down from the tree. He shook his head. I knew he was so ashamed of being afraid that he preferred to be alone in the privacy of the tree in order to gather his forces together.

The sun was beginning to sink. The jungle was not very far off and I was certain that the breeze blowing across the river had taken the scent of human beings into the depths of the forest.

The twilight came swiftly. The bars of gold and light vibrated over the tawny waters, and darkness fell like a black sword, cutting the day from the night. The voices of the birds from the tree-tops, here and there died down, and as if to enhance the silence, insect voices came from under the gra.s.s. I got on my elephant's back and sat there quietly, for as the evening Silence goes by, each man must make his prayer. As the Silence walked on, I could see the gra.s.s waving in zig-zag curves across the river.

It was always making half the figure eight in the undergrowth of the jungle.

Gradually all grew still and then over the river came the terrible hunger wail of a tiger. That instant its tawny face scarred with black emerged from behind green leaves. He saw I was across the river. The tiger's body is marked with the same stripes and curves as he makes in the gra.s.s when he walks, and people in the jungle can always tell by the wave of the gra.s.s which animal has pa.s.sed that way.

Throughout the country-side, wherever the echo of the wail was heard, a tension fell upon everything. Even the saplings were tense, and you could almost hear the cracking of the muscles of the animals holding themselves together and watching which way the tiger would pa.s.s. It was as if the horn of the chase had sounded and blown; each one had to take to cover.

Night came on apace. I wanted to tie Kari to a big tree, but he refused to be tied up that night. He paced up and down the sh.o.r.e without making the slightest noise. Then he would suddenly stand still and stop the waving of his ears in order to listen very intently to shadows of songs that might be pa.s.sing. I stayed on his back, intent on knowing what he was going to do. Soon, very soon, the river became silver-yellow and over the jungle a quickening silence throbbed from leaf to leaf.

Then swiftly the terrible face of the moon was upon us. Kari snorted and stepped backwards. I, too, was surprised because this was another moon, very rarely seen by men. It was the moon bringing the call of the summer to the jungle. It was the call for hunt and challenge, when elephants kill elephants to win their mates. And under the moon lay a great sinister figure like the terrible face of a dragon.

The July cloud was hovering in the distance, and between the cloud-banks and the moon I saw strange things, as if throngs of white animals were going from sky to sky--I don't know why--no one ever knows. These are the spirits of the jungle, the dead ancestors of the animals now living.

Without warning, Kari now plunged into the river. I spoke to him, scratched his neck with the _ankus_, but he would not stop. He forded the river, at times almost drowning, and charged madly up the other sh.o.r.e, where we were lost in the darkness of leaves and vines. No moonlight fell on us, not even the knowledge that the moon was up could be vouched for in this thick black place.

CHAPTER VI

KARI'S STORY

I cannot tell how many hours pa.s.sed. I think I fell asleep, but perhaps I saw this waking--I cannot tell. Suddenly Kari's face changed. He moved his eyes forward, looked at me, and said: