So sudden and unexpected had been his onslaught that he had put out quite half a dozen of the bunches of fire:  he had also put out the lives of the six, silly, little things who carried them.  For a few swift pressures of his mighty feet had squeezed out their breath and destroyed their power to invent mischief with which to entrap the Rogue elephant.

For some time after this Rataplan had been more mad and wicked than ever.  He knew perfectly well that he had killed a few of the fire-carriers, and he fully intended to kill a few more before he had done with them.  But they were very cunning, these fire-carriers, and, although he had nearly caught a few of them, once or twice, they had generally escaped him when quite close by suddenly disappearing, and this caused Rataplan many serious cogitations and musings.

Wicked and clever as he was, he had only the instincts of his kind.  All his senses were alert, and his eyes looked for enemies in all directions but one, and that one direction was above.  He never looked up, and it never occurred to his stupid, old head, sharp as he thought himself, that the little fire-carriers might have climbed up into the trees above him.  When they disappeared from his range of vision he gave up the chase, although, more often than not, the wicked, little things were sitting just above his head, where, had he only turned his trunk upwards, he could have picked them off as though they were little birds.

But he always did the same thing:  he floundered blunderingly on through the forest, trumpeting, roaring, pulling up and tearing down everything within his reach, but never having sense enough to look above him.  And so it was that he found it very difficult to get hold of the fire carriers, and he became madder and more full of rage than ever.

Even the herds of elephants were now getting afraid of him, although could they only have made up their gentle, docile minds to attack him he would have come to his end in no time.

But Indian elephants dislike warfare or disagreements, and often, even when severely wounded, will turn about and go away, not seeming to realize that a momentary pressure of one of their huge feet, or one straight blow with their tusks, would be more than sufficient to finish their enemies.  More often than not the most an Indian elephant will do to his foe is to kick him from one huge foot to another until he is either dead or dying.

But from Rataplan, the Rogue, the other elephants preferred to keep aloof.  Only once had a herd attempted to chase him, and this was when he had actually presumed to pay a little attention to the wife of its leader.

Then the leader, followed by the remainder of the herd, turned upon him, and for just once in his life Rataplan was frightened, and simply turned tail and ran—­ran crashing and stumbling through the forest at a terrific speed, making the air resound with his trumpeting.