Kari the Elephant Page #8

A nine-year-old boy raises and trains Kari the elephant, learning about the law of the jungle and the intelligence and the dignity of elephants.

• Fiction

								


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 horny 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.

[Illustration: 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 grass. 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 grass 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 grass when he walks, and people in the jungle can always tell by the wave of the grass which animal has passed 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 pass. 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 shore 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 passing. 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 shore, 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 passed. 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:

"Brother, this is the night of the jungle and I want you to hear a tale that my mother told me when I was four months old, and still roaming in the jungle. That was a short time before she and I were captured by men. I was born near the foot-hills of the Himalayas, for the snow-covered mountains could be seen in the distance, but we elephants were so proud of our own height that we never bothered about the hills. I once asked my mother, 'Why do tigers smell like this? Wherever a tiger goes, he brings a terrible stench with him.' This is what she told me:

"'Every animal that lives in the jungle is born to one kind of food or another. He either eats meat or he lives on herbs and fruits. Those who eat herbs never hate or fear, but those who eat other animals are tainted with both. We elephants never fear anyone or hate anyone and that is why we exude no stench, but a tiger has to live by killing. In order to kill one must hate, and in order to hate one must fear, and those spirits that you see walking through the air have taught all animals the secret of the jungle.

"'Now the secret of the jungle is this--the animal that lives by killing is diseased. He carries a strange, festering sore within him and that poisons his whole blood. Wherever he goes the stench of that poison reaches other animals, and this mother of us all who loves tigers, as well as the antelopes they kill, is so wise that animals that kill must be branded so that their victims will be able to take shelter. For this reason wherever the tiger goes his stench precedes him, and knowing this the fox comes out of his little hole and calls through the jungle that the tiger is out. Hence, here in the night when the moonlight falls on the thickest gloom, following the plaintive cry, the cunning fox, the servant of our mother, threads its way through the jungle giving the warning to all animals.'
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