I had barely time to cock my rifle, and the barrel almost touched him as
I fired. I knew it was in vain, as his trunk was raised. B. fired his
right-hand barrel at the same moment without effect from the same cause.
I jumped on one side and attempted to spring through the deep mud: it
was of no use, the long grass entangled my feet, and in another instant
I lay sprawling in the enraged elephant's path within a foot of him. In
that moment of suspense I expected to hear the crack of my own bones as
his massive foot would be upon me. It was an atom of time. I heard the
crack of a gun; it was B.'s last barrel. I felt a spongy weight strike
my heel, and, turning quickly heels over head, I rolled a few paces and
regained my feet. That last shot had floored him just as he was upon me;
the end of his trunk had fallen upon my heel. Still he was not dead, but
he struck at me with his trunk as I passed round his head to give him a
finisher with the four-ounce rifle, which I had snatched from our
solitary gun-bearer.

My back was touching the jungle from which the rogue had just charged,
and I was almost in the act of firing through the temple of the still
struggling elephant, when I heard a tremendous crash in the jungle
behind me similar to the first, and the savage scream of an elephant. I
saw the ponderous foreleg cleave its way through the jungle directly
upon me. I threw my whole weight back against the thick rattans to avoid
him, and the next moment his foot was planted within an inch of mine.
His lofty head was passing over me in full charge at B., who was
unloaded, when, holding the four-ounce rifle perpendicularly, I fired
exactly under his throat. I thought he would fall and crush me, but this
shot was the only chance, as B. was perfectly helpless.

A dense cloud of smoke from the heavy charge of powder for the moment