It was true that Langur Dass understood more of the ways of the forest people than any other hillman in the encampment.  But his caste was low, and he was drunken and careless and lazy beyond words, and the hunters had mostly only scorn for him.  They called him Langur after a grey-bearded breed of monkeys along the slopes of the Himalayas, rather suspecting he was cursed with evil spirits, for why should any sane man have such mad ideas as to the rights of elephants?  He never wanted to join in the drives—­which was a strange thing indeed for a man raised in the hills.  Perhaps he was afraid—­but yet they could remember a certain day in the bamboo thickets, when a great, wild buffalo had charged their camp and Langur Dass acted as if fear were something he had never heard of and knew nothing whatever about.

One day they asked him about it.  “Tell us, Langur Dass,” they asked, mocking the ragged, dejected looking creature, “If thy name speaks truth, thou art brother to many monkey-folk, and who knows the jungle better than thou or they?  None but the monkey-folk and thou canst talk with my lord the elephant. Hai! We have seen thee do it, Langur Dass.  How is it that when we go hunting, thou art afraid to come?”

Langur looked at them out of his dull eyes, and evaded their question just as long as he could.  “Have you forgotten the tales you heard on your mothers’ breasts?” he asked at last.  “Elephants are of the jungle.  You are of the cooking-pots and thatch!  How should such folk as ye are understand?”

This was flat heresy from their viewpoint.  There is an old legend among the elephant-catchers to the effect that at one time men were subject to the elephants.

Yet mostly the elephants that these men knew were patient and contented in their bonds.  Mostly they loved their mahouts, gave their strong backs willingly to toil, and were always glad and ready to join in the chase after others of their breed.  Only on certain nights of the year, when the tuskers called from the jungles, and the spirit of the wild was abroad, would their love of liberty return to them.  But to all this little Muztagh was distinctly an exception.  Even though he had been born in captivity, his desire for liberty was with him just as constantly as his trunk or his ears.

He had no love for the mahout that rode his mother.  He took little interest in the little brown boys and girls that played before his stall.  He would stand and look over their heads into the wild, dark heart of the jungle that no man can ever quite understand.  And being only a beast, he did not know anything about the caste and prejudices of the men he saw, but he did know that one of them, the low-caste Langur Dass, ragged and dirty and despised, wakened a responsive chord in his lonely heart.

They would have long talks together, that is, Langur would talk and Muztagh would mumble.  “Little calf, little fat one,” the man would say, “can great rocks stop a tree from growing?  Shall iron shackles stop a prince from being king?  Muztagh—­jewel among jewels!  Thy heart speaks through those sleepless eyes of thine!  Have patience—­what thou knowest, who shall take away from thee?”