"On arrival I found the old head man in a state painfully like that
favoured by Greek art, dancing about in front of his ruined abodes as
vigorously as though he had just been stung by a scorpion.

"I asked him what ailed him, and he burst out into a flood of abuse.
He called me a Wizard, a Sham, a Fraud, a Bringer of bad luck! I had
promised to kill the elephants, and I had so arranged things that the
elephants had nearly killed him, etc.

"This, still smarting, or rather aching, as I was from that most
terrific bump, was too much for my feelings, so I just made a rush at
my friend, and getting him by the ear, I banged his head against the
doorway of his own hut, which was all that was left of it.

"'You wicked old scoundrel,' I said, 'you dare to complain about your
own trifling inconveniences, when you gave me a rotten beam to sit on,
and thereby delivered me to the fury of the elephant' (_bump! bump!
bump!_), 'when your own wife' (_bump!_) 'has just been dragged out
of her hut' (_bump!_) 'like a snail from its shell, and thrown by the
Earth-shaker into a tree' (_bump! bump!_).

"'Mercy, my father, mercy!' gasped the old fellow. 'Truly I have done
amiss--my heart tells me so.'

"'I should hope it did, you old villain' (_bump!_).

"'Mercy, great white man! I thought the log was sound. But what says the
unequalled chief--is the old woman, my wife, indeed dead? Ah, if she is
dead all may yet prove to have been for the very best;' and he clasped