“Not green corn, Protector of the Poor,—­melons,” said Little Toomai, and all the men sitting about broke into a roar of laughter.  Most of them had taught their elephants that trick when they were boys.  Little Toomai was hanging eight feet up in the air, and he wished very much that he were eight feet underground.

“He is Toomai, my son, Sahib,” said Big Toomai, scowling.  “He is a very bad boy, and he will end in a jail, Sahib.”

“Of that I have my doubts,” said Petersen Sahib.  “A boy who can face a full Keddah at his age does not end in jails.  See, little one, here are four annas to spend in sweetmeats because thou hast a little head under that great thatch of hair.  In time thou mayest become a hunter too.”  Big Toomai scowled more than ever.  “Remember, though, that Keddahs are not good for children to play in,” Petersen Sahib went on.

“Must I never go there, Sahib?” asked Little Toomai with a big gasp.

“Yes.”  Petersen Sahib smiled again.  “When thou hast seen the elephants dance.  That is the proper time.  Come to me when thou hast seen the elephants dance, and then I will let thee go into all the Keddahs.”

There was another roar of laughter, for that is an old joke among elephant-catchers, and it means just never.  There are great cleared flat places hidden away in the forests that are called elephants’ ball-rooms, but even these are only found by accident, and no man has ever seen the elephants dance.  When a driver boasts of his skill and bravery the other drivers say, “And when didst thou see the elephants dance?”

Kala Nag put Little Toomai down, and he bowed to the earth again and went away with his father, and gave the silver four-anna piece to his mother, who was nursing his baby brother, and they all were put up on Kala Nag’s back, and the line of grunting, squealing elephants rolled down the hill path to the plains.  It was a very lively march on account of the new elephants, who gave trouble at every ford, and needed coaxing or beating every other minute.

Big Toomai prodded Kala Nag spitefully, for he was very angry, but Little Toomai was too happy to speak.  Petersen Sahib had noticed him, and given him money, so he felt as a private soldier would feel if he had been called out of the ranks and praised by his commander-in-chief.

“What did Petersen Sahib mean by the elephant dance?” he said, at last, softly to his mother.

Big Toomai heard him and grunted.  “That thou shouldst never be one of these hill buffaloes of trackers.  That was what he meant.  Oh, you in front, what is blocking the way?”

An Assamese driver, two or three elephants ahead, turned round angrily, crying:  “Bring up Kala Nag, and knock this youngster of mine into good behavior.  Why should Petersen Sahib have chosen me to go down with you donkeys of the rice fields?  Lay your beast alongside, Toomai, and let him prod with his tusks.  By all the Gods of the Hills, these new elephants are possessed, or else they can smell their companions in the jungle.”  Kala Nag hit the new elephant in the ribs and knocked the wind out of him, as Big Toomai said, “We have swept the hills of wild elephants at the last catch.  It is only your carelessness in driving.  Must I keep order along the whole line?”