Dermot instantly recognised his danger. It was very great. His rifle was
some distance away, and before he could reach it the tusker would probably
overtake him. He stopped and stood still, hoping that the rogue had not
caught sight of him. But he saw at once that there was no doubt of this.
The brute had its murderous little eyes fixed on him and was quickening its
pace. The undergrowth that almost held the man a prisoner was no obstacle
to this powerful beast.

Dermot realised that it meant to attack him. His heart nearly stopped, for
he knew the terrible death that awaited him. He had seen the crushed
bodies, battered to pulp and with the limbs torn away, of men killed by
rogue elephants. The only hope of escape, a faint one, lay in flight.

Madly he strove to tear himself free from the clutching thorns and the grip
of the entangling creepers that held him. He flung all his weight into his
efforts to fight his way out clear of the malignant vegetation, that seemed
a cruel, living thing striving to drag him to his death. The elephant saw
his desperate struggles. It trumpeted shrilly and, with head held high,
trunk curled up, and the lust of murder in its heart, it charged.

The tangled network of interlaced undergrowth parted like gossamer before
it. Small trees went down and the tallest bushes were trampled flat; the
stoutest creepers broke like pack-thread before its weight.

Dermot tore himself free from the clutch of the last clinging, curving
thorns that rent his garments and cut deep into his flesh. Gaining
comparatively open ground he ran for his life. But he had lost all sense of
direction and could not remember where his rifle stood. Escape seemed
hopeless. He knew only too well that in the jungle a pursuing elephant will
always overtake a fleeing man. The trees offered no refuge, for the lowest