‘Ten days,’ said Deesa, ’you must work and haul and root trees as Chihun here shall order you.  Take up Chihun and set him on your neck!’ Moti Guj curled the tip of his trunk, Chihun put his foot there and was swung on to the neck.  Deesa handed Chihun the heavy ankus, the iron elephant-goad.

Chihun thumped Moti Guj’s bald head as a paviour thumps a kerbstone.

Moti Guj trumpeted.

’Be still, hog of the backwoods.  Chihun’s your mahout for ten days.  And now bid me good-bye, beast after mine own heart.  Oh, my lord, my king!  Jewel of all created elephants, lily of the herd, preserve your honoured health; be virtuous.  Adieu!’

Moti Guj lapped his trunk round Deesa and swung him into the air twice.  That was his way of bidding the man good-bye.

‘He’ll work now,’ said Dessa to the planter.  ‘Have I leave to go?’

The planter nodded, and Deesa dived into the woods.  Moti Guj went back to haul stumps.

Chihun was very kind to him, but he felt unhappy and forlorn notwithstanding.  Chihun gave him balls of spices, and tickled him under the chin, and Chihun’s little baby cooed to him after work was over, and Chihun’s wife called him a darling; but Moti Guj was a bachelor by instinct, as Deesa was.  He did not understand the domestic emotions.  He wanted the light of his universe back again—­the drink and the drunken slumber, the savage beatings and the savage caresses.

None the less he worked well, and the planter wondered.  Deesa had vagabonded along the roads till he met a marriage procession of his own caste and, drinking, dancing, and tippling, had drifted past all knowledge of the lapse of time.

The morning of the eleventh day dawned, and there returned no Deesa.  Moti Guj was loosed from his ropes for the daily stint.  He swung clear, looked round, shrugged his shoulders, and began to walk away, as one having business elsewhere.

‘Hi! ho!  Come back, you,’ shouted Chihun.  ’Come back, and put me on your neck, Misborn Mountain.  Return, Splendour of the Hillsides.  Adornment of all India, heave to, or I’ll bang every toe off your fat fore-foot!’

Moti Guj gurgled gently, but did not obey.  Chihun ran after him with a rope and caught him up.  Moti Guj put his ears forward, and Chihun knew what that meant, though he tried to carry it off with high words.

‘None of your nonsense with me,’ said he.  ‘To your pickets, Devil-son.’

‘Hrrump!’ said Moti Guj, and that was all—­that and the forebent ears.

Moti Guj put his hands in his pockets, chewed a branch for a toothpick, and strolled about the clearing, making jest of the other elephants, who had just set to work.

Chihun reported the state of affairs to the planter, who came out with a dog-whip and cracked it furiously.  Moti Guj paid the white man the compliment of charging him nearly a quarter of a mile across the clearing and ‘Hrrumping’ him into the verandah.  Then he stood outside the house chuckling to himself, and shaking all over with the fun of it, as an elephant will.