hands, tried their very best to inveigle and entrap him, but in vain.
Once, indeed, he had very nearly fallen into a horrible pit in which,
at the very bottom, in the centre, was a dreadful, long, sharp stake,
which, had he fallen, would have been driven through his thick body by
its own weight, and he would have perished miserably and in agony.

But he had found it out in time--only just in time--for one of his
hind legs had shot out suddenly behind him, and it was only by a
mighty effort of his huge strength that he scrambled up and away from
the source of danger.

But oh, what havoc he made! How he tore up anything and everything
within his reach! Iron fences which those silly, little fire-carriers
had stuck into the ground to protect their crops; silly, little, brick
walls which he knocked over with one push of his huge body; young,
healthy trees which had been planted so carefully a few years back,
and which he pulled up with his long trunk as though they were little
radishes; not to speak of the miles of rice and sugar-cane which he
had trodden down in wanton waste and as a means of venting his temper.

Another time they had tried to drive him into a horrid place called a
_Keddah_, which had been built with stout logs, and had huge
buttresses which even he would have found it difficult to move.

He had been really startled one dark night on seeing huge bunches of
fire coming towards him, and in spite of his daring he began to run in
the opposite direction.

But it takes a rogue to catch a Rogue, and Rataplan was pretty wary.
He had sense enough to know that those silly, little things on two