He screamed—­stopped—­quivered right over me—­toppled from the knees—­and fell like a landslide, pushed forward as he tumbled by the weight behind, and held from rolling sidewise by the living tide on either flank.  I tried to spring back, but his falling trunk struck me to earth.  On either side of me a huge tusk drove into the ground, and I lay still between them, as safe as if in bed, while the herd crashed past to right and left for so many minutes that it seemed all the universe was elephants—­bulls, cows and calves all trumpeting in mad desire to get away—­away—­anywhere at all so be it was not where they then were.

Blood poured on me from the dead brute’s throat—­warm, slippery, sticky stuff; but I lay still.  I did not move when the crashing had all gone by, but lay looking up at the monster that had willed his worst and, seeking to slay, had saved me.  Those are the moments when young men summon all their calf-philosophy.  I wondered what the difference was between that brute and me, that I should be justified in slaying; that I should be congratulated; that I should have been pitied, had the touch-and-go reversed itself and he killed me.  I knew there was a difference that had nothing to do with shape, or weight, or size, but I could not give it a name or lay my finger on it.

My reverie, or reaction, or whatever it was, was broken by Fred’s voice, flustered and out of breath, coming nearer at a great pace.

“I tell you the poor chap’s dead as a door-nail!  He’s under that great bull, I tell you!  He’s simply been charged and flattened out!  What a dog I was—­what a green-horn—­what a careless, fat-headed tomfool to leave him alone like that!  He was the least experienced of all of us, and we let him take the full brunt of a charging herd!  We ought to be hung, drawn and quartered!  I shall never forgive myself!  As for you, Will, it wasn’t half as much your fault as mine!  You were following me.  You expected me to give the orders, and I ought to have called a halt away back there until we were all three in touch!  I’ll never forgive myself—­never!”

I crawled out then from between the tusks, and shook myself, much more dazed than I expected, and full of an unaccountable desire to vomit.

“Damn your soul!” Fred fairly yelled at me.  “What the hell d’you mean by startling me in that way!  Why aren’t you dead?  Look out!  What’s the matter with the man?  The poor chap’s hurt—­I knew he was!”

But that inexplicable desire to empty all I had inside me out on to the trampled ground could no longer be resisted, that was all.  The aftermath of deadly fear is fear’s corollary.  Each bears fruit after its kind.

To my one tusker Will and Fred had brought down five and six respectively.  That made twenty-three tusks, for one was an enormous “singleton.”  We sent Kazimoto back alone to try to persuade some of our porters to come and chop out the ivory with axes, bidding him promise them all the hearts, and as many tail-hairs as they chose to pull out to keep witches away with.  Then, since my sickness passed presently and left me steady on my legs, Fred made a proposal that we jumped at.