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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!"



CHAPTER V

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.

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