Now the track ran upwards from the hollow to a ridge two or three miles away.  We reached the crest of this ridge without accident, except that on our road we met another aged elephant, a cow with very poor tusks, travelling to its last resting place, or so I suppose.  I don’t know which was the more frightened, the sick cow or the camel, for camels hate elephants as horses hate camels until they get used to them.  The cow bolted to the right as quickly as it could, which was not very fast, and the camel bolted to the left with such convulsive bounds that we were nearly thrown off its back.  However, being an equable brute, it soon recovered its balance, and we got back to the track beyond the cow.

From the top of the rise we saw that before us lay a sandy plain lightly clothed in grass, and, to our joy, about ten miles away at the foot of a very gentle slope, the moonlight gleamed upon the waters of a broad river.  It was not easy to make out, but it was there, we were both sure it was there; we could not mistake the wavering, silver flash.  On we went for another quarter of a mile, when something caused me to turn round on the sheepskin and look back.

Oh Heavens!  At the very top of the rise, clearly outlined against the sky, stood Jana himself with his trunk lifted.  Next instant he trumpeted, a furious, rattling challenge of rage and defiance.

“Allemagte!  Baas,” said Hans, “the old devil is coming to look for his lost eye, and has seen us with that which remains.  He has been travelling on our spoor.”

“Forward!” I answered, bringing my heels into the camel’s ribs.

Then the race began.  The camel was a very good camel, one of the real running breed; also, as Hans said, it was comparatively fresh, and may, moreover, have been aware that it was near to the plains where it had been bred.  Lastly, the going was now excellent, soft to its spongy feet but not too deep in sand, nor were there any rocks over which it could fall.  It went off like the wind, making nothing of our united weights which did not come to more than two hundred pounds, or a half of what it could carry with ease, being perhaps urged to its top speed by the knowledge that the elephant was behind.  For mile after mile we rushed down the plain.  But we did not go alone, for Jana came after us like a cruiser after a gunboat.  Moreover, swiftly as we travelled, he travelled just a little swifter, gaining say a few yards in every hundred.  For the last mile before we came to the river bank, half an hour later perhaps, though it seemed to be a week, he was not more than fifty paces to our rear.  I glanced back at him, and in the light of the moon, which was growing low, he bore a strange resemblance to a mud cottage with broken chimneys (which were his ears flapping on each side of him), and the yard pump projecting from the upper window.

“We shall beat him now, Hans,” I said looking at the broad river which was now close at hand.