“There was nothing for it but to follow their lead, and accordingly we followed with industry.  Through all that long hot day did we tramp, passing quantities of every sort of game, and even coming across the spoor of other elephants.  But, in spite of my men’s entreaties, I would not turn aside after these.  I would have those mighty tusks or none.

“By evening we were quite close to our game, probably within a quarter of a mile, but the bush was dense, and we could see nothing of them, so once more we must camp, thoroughly disgusted with our luck.  That night, just after the moon rose, while I was sitting smoking my pipe with my back against a tree, I heard an elephant trumpet, as though something had startled it, and not three hundred yards away.  I was very tired, but my curiosity overcame my weariness, so, without saying a word to any of the men, all of whom were asleep, I took my eight-bore and a few spare cartridges, and steered toward the sound.  The game path which we had been following all day ran straight on in the direction from which the elephant had trumpeted.  It was narrow, but well trodden, and the light struck down upon it in a straight white line.  I crept along it cautiously for some two hundred yards, when it opened suddenly into a most beautiful glade some hundred yards or more in width, wherein tall grass grew and flat-topped trees stood singly.  With the caution born of long experience I watched for a few moments before I entered the glade, and then I saw why the elephant had trumpeted.  There in the middle of the glade stood a large maned lion.  He stood quite still, making a soft purring noise, and waving his tail to and fro.  Presently the grass about forty yards on the hither side of him gave a wide ripple, and a lioness sprang out of it like a flash, and bounded noiselessly up to the lion.  Reaching him, the great cat halted suddenly, and rubbed her head against his shoulder.  Then they both began to purr loudly, so loudly that I believe that in the stillness one might have heard them two hundred yards or more away.

“After a time, while I was still hesitating what to do, either they got a whiff of my wind, or they wearied of standing still, and determined to start in search of game.  At any rate, as though moved by a common impulse, they bounded suddenly away, leap by leap, and vanished in the depths of the forest to the left.  I waited for a little while longer to see if there were any more yellow skins about, and seeing none, came to the conclusion that the lions must have frightened the elephants away, and that I had taken my stroll for nothing.  But just as I was turning back I thought that I heard a bough break upon the further side of the glade, and, rash as the act was, I followed the sound.  I crossed the glade as silently as my own shadow.  On its further side the path went on.  Albeit with many fears, I went on too.  The jungle growth was so thick here that it almost met overhead, leaving so small a passage for the light that I could scarcely see to grope my way along.  Presently, however, it widened, and then opened into a second glade slightly smaller than the first, and there, on the further side of it, about eighty yards from me, stood the three enormous elephants.