Page:In Desert and Wilderness (Sienkiewicz, tr. Drezmal).djvu/352

344 and its readiness to attack everything which comes within range of its vision, it ran away shamefully at the sight of the King, whom only the commands of Stas restrained from pursuit.

An African elephant detests a rhinoceros, and if he finds its fresh tracks, trusting to superior strength, he follows until he finds his adversary and commences a combat in which the rhinoceros is almost always the victim. It was not easy for the King, who undoubtedly was already responsible for the death of many, to renounce this habit, but now he was so tame and was so accustomed to regard Stas as his master, that hearing his voice and observing the threatening look in his eyes, he dropped his uplifted trunk and walked ahead quietly. Stas did not lack a desire to witness a fight between giants, but he feared for Nell. If the elephant started on a full run, the palanquin might be wrecked, and what is worse, the huge beast might bump it against a bough, and then Nell's life would be in terrible danger. Stas knew from descriptions of hunts which he had read in Port Said that the tiger-hunters in India fear, more than the tigers, that the elephant in a panic or in pursuit may dash the howdah against a tree. Finally, the full run of the giant is so heavy that no one without impairment of his health could long endure such rides.

On the other hand, the presence of the King removed a multitude of dangers. The malignant and bold buffaloes, which they met that day bound for the little lake at which all the animals of the vicinity gathered at evening, also scampered away at sight of him and, making a circuit of the whole lake, drank on the other side. At night the King, with one hind leg tied to a tree, guarded the tent in which Nell slept. This was a watch so secure that though Stas ordered a fire to be built, he regarded