So after we were rested a little, and the Kafirs had
cut out the hearts of two of the dead elephants for
supper, we started homewards, very well pleased with
our day’s work, having made up our minds to
send the bearers on the morrow to chop away the tusks.
Shortly after we re-passed the spot where Good had
wounded the patriarchal bull we came across a herd
of eland, but did not shoot at them, as we had plenty
of meat. They trotted past us, and then stopped
behind a little patch of bush about a hundred yards
away, wheeling round to look at us. As Good was
anxious to get a near view of them, never having seen
an eland close, he handed his rifle to Umbopa, and,
followed by Khiva, strolled up to the patch of bush.
We sat down and waited for him, not sorry of the excuse
for a little rest.
The sun was just going down in its reddest glory,
and Sir Henry and I were admiring the lovely scene,
when suddenly we heard an elephant scream, and saw
its huge and rushing form with uplifted trunk and tail
silhouetted against the great fiery globe of the sun.
Next second we saw something else, and that was Good
and Khiva tearing back towards us with the wounded
bull—for it was he—charging after
them. For a moment we did not dare to fire—though
at that distance it would have been of little use
if we had done so—for fear of hitting one
of them, and the next a dreadful thing happened—Good
fell a victim to his passion for civilised dress.
Had he consented to discard his trousers and gaiters
like the rest of us, and to hunt in a flannel shirt
and a pair of veldt-schoons, it would have been all
right. But as it was, his trousers cumbered him
in that desperate race, and presently, when he was
about sixty yards from us, his boot, polished by the
dry grass, slipped, and down he went on his face right
in front of the elephant.
We gave a gasp, for we knew that he must die, and
ran as hard as we could towards him. In three
seconds it had ended, but not as we thought.
Khiva, the Zulu boy, saw his master fall, and brave
lad as he was, turned and flung his assegai straight
into the elephant’s face. It stuck in his
trunk.
With a scream of pain, the brute seized the poor Zulu,
hurled him to the earth, and placing one huge foot
on to his body about the middle, twined its trunk
round his upper part and tore him in two.
We rushed up mad with horror, and fired again and
again, till presently the elephant fell upon the fragments
of the Zulu.
As for Good, he rose and wrung his hands over the
brave man who had given his life to save him, and,
though I am an old hand, I felt a lump grow in my
throat. Umbopa stood contemplating the huge dead
elephant and the mangled remains of poor Khiva.
“Ah, well,” he said presently, “he
is dead, but he died like a man!”
OUR MARCH INTO THE DESERT
We had killed nine elephants, and it took us two days
to cut out the tusks, and having brought them into
camp, to bury them carefully in the sand under a large
tree, which made a conspicuous mark for miles round.
It was a wonderfully fine lot of ivory. I never
saw a better, averaging as it did between forty and
fifty pounds a tusk. The tusks of the great bull
that killed poor Khiva scaled one hundred and seventy
pounds the pair, so nearly as we could judge.
