They looked him over from tail to trunk.  They marked the symmetrical form, the legs like mighty pillars, the sloping back, the wide-apart, intelligent eyes.  His shoulders were an expression of latent might—­power to break a tree-trunk at its base; by the conformity of his muscles he was agile and quick as a tiger.  And knowing these things, and recognizing them, and honouring them, devotees of strength that they were, they threw their trunks in the air till they touched their foreheads and blared their full-voiced salute.

They gave it the same instant—­as musicians strike the same note at their leader’s signal.  It was a perfect explosion of sound, a terrible blare, that crashed out through the jungles and wakened every sleeping thing.  The dew fell from the trees.  A great tawny tiger, lingering in hope of an elephant calf, slipped silently away.  The sound rang true and loud to the surrounding hills and echoed and re-echoed softer and softer, until it was just a tiny tremour in the air.

Not only the jungle folk marvelled at the sound.  At an encampment three miles distant Ahmad Din and his men heard the wild call, and looked with wondering eyes upon each other.  Then out of the silence spoke Langur Dass.

“My lord Muztagh has come back to his herd—­that is his salute,” he said.

Ahmad Din looked darkly about the circle.  “And how long shall he stay?” he asked.

The trap was almost ready.  The hour to strike had almost come.

Meanwhile the grand old leader stamped into the circle, seeming unconscious of the eyes upon him, battle-scarred and old.  Even if this fight were his last, he meant to preserve his dignity.

Again the salute sounded—­shattering out like a thunderclap over the jungle.  Then challenger and challenged closed.

At first the watchers were silent.  Then as the battle grew ever fiercer and more terrible, they began to grunt and squeal, surging back and forth, stamping the earth and crashing the underbrush.  All the jungle-folk for miles about knew what was occurring.  And Ahmad Din wished his keddah were completed, for never could there be a better opportunity to surround the herd than at the present moment, when they had forgotten all things except the battling monsters in the centre of the ring.

The two bulls were quite evenly matched.  The patriarch knew more of fighting, had learned more wiles, but he had neither the strength nor the agility of Muztagh.  The late twilight deepened into the intense dark, and the stars of midnight rose above the eastern hills.

All at once, Muztagh went to his knees.  But as might a tiger, he sprang aside in time to avoid a terrible tusk blow to his shoulder.  And his counter-blow, a lashing cut with the head, shattered the great leader to the earth.  The elephants bounded forward, but the old leader had a trick left in his trunk.  As Muztagh bore down upon him he reared up beneath, and almost turned the tables.  Only the youngster’s superior strength saved him from immediate defeat.