Page:In Desert and Wilderness (Sienkiewicz, tr. Drezmal).djvu/280

 272 to the elephant as best she could; after which she stretched out her little hand with the begonias and spoke in a slightly quivering voice.

"Good day, dear elephant. I know you won't harm me; so I came to say good day—and I have only these flowers—"

And the colossus approached, stretched out his trunk, and picked the bunch of begonias out of Nell's little fingers, and putting them into his mouth he dropped them at once as evidently neither the rough leaves nor the flowers were to his taste. Nell now saw above her the trunk like a huge black snake which stretched and bent; it touched one of her little hands and then the other; afterwards both shoulders and finally descending it began to swing gently to and fro.

"I knew that you would not harm me," the little girl repeated, though fear did not leave her.

Meanwhile the elephant drew back his fabulous ears, winding and unwinding alternately his trunk and gurgling joyfully as he always gurgled when the little girl approached the brink of the ravine.

And as at one time Stas and the lion, so now these two stood opposite each other—he, an enormity, resembling a house or a rock, and she a mite whom he could crush with one motion, not indeed in rage but through inadvertence.

But the good and prudent animal did not make angry or inadvertent motions, but evidently was pleased and happy at the arrival of the little guest.

Nell gained courage gradually and finally raised her eyes upwards and, looking as though onto a high roof she asked timidly, raising her little hand:

"May I stroke your trunk?"

The elephant did not, indeed, understand English, but