Page:Francis Crawford - Mr Isaacs.djvu/220

 the bravest knight that ever laid lance in rest. Don't part with superstitions like that, They are noble and generous things."

"Perhaps," he answered, "but I really am very superstitious," he added, as he turned into the bathing connât. Soon I heard him splashing among the water jars.

"By-the-bye, Griggs," he called out through the canvas, "I forgot to tell you. They are bringing that beast home on an elephant. It was much nearer than we supposed. They will be here in twenty minutes." A tremendous splashing interrupted him. "You can go and attend to that funeral you were talking about last night," he added, and his voice was again drowned in the swish and souse of the water. "He was rather large—over ten feet—I should say. Measure him as soon as he" another cascade completed the sentence. I went out, taking the measuring tape from the table.

In a few minutes the procession appeared. Two or three matutinal shikarries had gone out and come back, followed by the elephant, for which Isaacs had sent the ryot at full speed the moment he was sure the beast was dead. And so they came up the little hill behind the dining-tent. The great tusker moved evenly along, bearing on the pad an enormous yellow carcass, at which the little mahout glanced occasionally over his shoulder. Astride of the dead king sat the ryot, who had directed Isaacs, crooning a strange psalm of victory in his outlandish northern dialect, and occasionally