glade, and, rash as the act was, I followed the sound. I crossed the
glade as silently as my own shadow. On its further side the path went
on. Albeit with many fears, I went on too. The jungle growth was so
thick here that it almost met overhead, leaving so small a passage for
the light that I could scarcely see to grope my way along. Presently,
however, it widened, and then opened into a second glade slightly
smaller than the first, and there, on the further side of it, about
eighty yards from me, stood the three enormous elephants.

"They stood thus:--Immediately opposite and facing me was the wounded
one-tusked bull. He was leaning his bulk against a dead thorn-tree, the
only one in the place, and looked very sick indeed. Near him stood the
second bull as though keeping a watch over him. The third elephant was
a good deal nearer to me and broadside on. While I was still staring at
them, this elephant suddenly walked off and vanished down a path in the
bush to the right.

"There are now two things to be done--either I could go back to the camp
and advance upon the elephants at dawn, or I could attack them at once.
The first was, of course, by far the wiser and safer course. To engage
one elephant by moonlight and single-handed is a sufficiently rash
proceeding; to tackle three was little short of lunacy. But, on
the other hand, I knew that they would be on the march again before
daylight, and there might come another day of weary trudging before I
could catch them up, or they might escape me altogether.

"'No,' I thought to myself, 'faint heart never won fair tusk. I'll risk
it, and have a slap at them. But how?' I could not advance across the
open, for they would see me; clearly the only thing to do was to creep
round in the shadow of the bush and try to come upon them so. So I