Beasts Royal: Twelve Tales of Adventure

by Patrick O'Brian

  His mahout, Moti Lal, was the grandson of Wang Kahn’s first mahout, and the son of his second. For three generations Moti Lal’s family had ridden Wang Kahn, and the great elephant loved his mahout and Little Moti, the mahout’s only son; and as they both loved Wang Kahn they were all three very happy.

  He was standing in the shade of a tree, with Little Moti between his ponderous feet.

  ‘Lift me up, fat pig,’ said the child, and in a moment he was on the elephant’s broad back, where he was as much at home as on the ground. Presently Moti Lal came out from his hut, carrying a pot of arrack, a very powerful spirit brewed from rice; Wang Kahn loved arrack, and he came from under the tree with his trunk outstretched.

  ‘Descend, O worthless child, and go and see that no one steals the melons,’ cried Moti Lal, giving the elephant the arrack.

  Coming down by way of the tail, Little Moti went to guard the ripening melons, and his father mounted the elephant.

  He was one of the very few mahouts who never used the ankus, or iron elephant goad, but guided Wang Kahn by speaking to him or by tapping the sides of his head with his feet.

  Wang Kahn was very wise, perhaps he was the most wise of all the elephants; at any rate Moti Lal thought so when he saw how he responded to the slightest word or touch.

  They went down to the river where the other mahouts had assembled the remaining nine elephants. Moti Lal noticed that the great teak logs were coming down the river in greater numbers than usual, and he shouted across to another mahout, ‘Are they sending down an extra consignment?’

  ‘No,’ replied the other, ‘there was a block up by the Tulwar station, and this is the result.’

  Just then a party of men arrived with a fresh load of logs to be floated down to the company’s headquarters some 200 miles down the river.

  The white superintendent, who rejoiced in the name Smith, rode up on his elephant and gave orders to concentrate on getting the fresh teak into the water.

  ‘But, tuan,’ said an aged mahout, ‘there will be a jam.’

  ‘Don’t answer me, man,’ cried Smith, who was young, and raw, and considered himself above taking advice from a native.

  Until noon they worked on the new logs, huge thick trunks twenty feet long, which the elephants handled with a remarkable skill, as they had a perfect sense of balance.

  When they knocked off for the siesta (no work was done in the great heat of the noon-day sun) and returned to the elephant lines, the logs were going downstream in perfect order, though rather tightly packed.

  When the heat of the day had passed, the elephants were taken into the forest for clearing and hauling new timber down to the river. The elephants all loathed clearing, because they had to grub up roots with their tusks, and scuffle about in harness, dragging great tree-trunks and things.

  Moti Lal did not like his son to come down to the river, but he always let him come into the forest on Wang Kahn’s back.

  They were rooting up a tree stump in a dusty clearing when the alarm siren, the signal of a jam in the river, shrieked from the river bank. Before any order was given Wang Kahn had put Moti Lal on his back and set off for the river.

  They found an extraordinary turmoil in the river; on a rock which stood just clear of the water about a quarter of the way across the river there was wedged a great log, and behind it there stretched a mass of logs all heaving and swaying with the force of the stream.

  The whole river, from bank to bank, was covered by a wedge-shaped jam, all dependent on the one great log which lay across the stream against the rock; more logs were being brought down every minute, and if the jam were not released very quickly the logs would form themselves into a dam, and flood all the low-lying country round the river for miles.

  The river piled up more and more logs behind the block, and Smith strode up and down the bank, very scared, and bawling for Wang Kahn. At last the elephant arrived, and Smith ordered Moti Lal to make him move the big log which was at the apex of the triangular wedge. Slowly the elephant waded in, he had seen at a glance that the thing to do was to give the log a sharp tug to set it afloat again, and then rush back again to the bank before all the timber came rushing down with the terrific force of the pent-up river behind it.

  Guiding him carefully through the water, Moti Lal brought Wang Kahn to the log, and they were just about to pull, when Little Moti, who had been forgotten in the turmoil, fell into the river.

  The boy could not swim very well, and no one could possibly swim in the welter of rushing logs if once Wang Kahn released them. His father plunged in after Little Moti, shouting to Wang Kahn, ‘Hold the logs, hathi-raj.’ The elephant had heard and understood. Moti Lal had not seen that the great trunk which held the wedge had slipped a little, and was almost free of the rock.

  The elephant had felt the log slip a little, and he knew that there was a danger of the whole jam giving way before Moti Lal could reach the bank. He felt the weight increasing enormously as more logs were piled on the back of the wedge, and he knew that if he wanted to reach the bank alive he would have to go at once, and quickly at that.

  Little Moti was struggling and frightened, but his father had got hold of him, and they were slowly nearing the bank.

  From the corner of his eye Wang Kahn could see this, and he set his mighty shoulder at the base of the log and pushed with all his great strength. It did not give an inch; things were worse than they had appeared, and the elephant could not hold the mass back for more than a few minutes at the most.

  The swimmers had passed out of his sight now, and his only anxiety was that they should be able to gain the bank before he had to let go.

  He straddled a little wider, and strove fiercely against the shifting logs whose weight was slowly pushing him back; grunting and exhausted, he made a great effort, and gained an inch. Just then Moti Lal crawled out on to the wet mud of the river bank, and shouted to Wang Kahn, who heard, and trumpeted as he went down in the maelstrom of crashing logs.

  His body was washed ashore next day, far down the river, almost unrecognizable.

  RHINO

  IX

  Rhino

  A rhinoceros was resting beneath a tree. The blazing African sun was beginning to go down in the west, but the heat was still at its worst, and the dusty plain, sparsely covered with scrub and small trees, shimmered in the heat-haze.

  On the rhino’s back a dozen small birds hopped to and fro. They were the only living things whose presence the rhino could tolerate, for he was constitutionally ill-tempered; but he liked the birds because they kept away the big stinging flies, and, better still, they removed the boring parasites who burrowed into his thick, tough hide, and made his life miserable.

  The sight of any other creature except these birds filled him with unreasoning annoyance, and if it stayed near him his annoyance would turn into rage, and he would charge it even if it were a lion.

  His sight was very poor, but his acute sense of smell made up for that. His short sight made him suspicious of everything which he saw moving, and sometimes he would root up a bush that had been moving in the wind on the off chance that it might be some animal.

  He was afraid of nothing on earth, but there was not an animal in the bush who would care to try its chances against him.

  When he came down to the water-hole in the middle of the plain everything made way for him, from the lions downwards.

  Once a lion had tried conclusions with him; it had not lived to tell the tale.

  The rhino was a terrible fighter; his immense weight, his remarkable speed when he charged, and above all the single long horn on the top of his snout, combined to make him almost invincible. Once he had got his ponderous body under way his great weight gave him an unbelievable velocity, and at the height of his charge the rhino could outpace a galloping horse.

  The pride of his life was his horn. The long, sharp, tapering projection curved slightly backwards; it was unrivalled as an instrument for ripping up his opponents.


  He spent a great deal of time in stropping it against the trunk of the same tree against which he rubbed himself, with the result that all the bark of the tree near the ground disappeared.

  In much the same manner as a bird whets its beak on a twig, the rhinoceros sharpened his horn against the tree, keeping it sharp for any emergency.

  His greatest strength lay in his shoulders, so when he threw up his head the force of the jerk was so great that anything that he had impaled on his horn was thrown high over his back. He kept himself practised at this by grubbing up bushes and small trees, so that the part of the bush in which he lived was freely dotted with dead, dry trunks and branches; it also helped to work off his ill temper.

  His only rival in the bush was another rhinoceros, who lived some way to the north, and who was the only animal who had ever beaten him. This was in a fight for a remarkably well-made female rhino.

  He had not been quite at his prime at the time when he was beaten, but the defeat had preyed on his mind, making him more than usually morose.

  A strong north wind had been blowing all day, but as the sun’s heat grew less, it dropped, and a little before sunset a light south-west breeze blew across the plain.

  The breeze carried with it a smell which puzzled the rhino. He sniffed the wind meditatively; he could distinguish the scent of the mixed herd of wildebeest and zebra which wandered habitually in the south of his part of the world in that season; that was the prevailing scent, but there was also the musty, somewhat fetid odour of a lion, probably attended by a few jackals and hyenas; it was none of these smells, however, that disquieted the rhino, for he was quite used to them, and knew what they were; it was another smell which he did not know that puzzled him.

  It was vaguely like that of another rhinoceros but it was subtly different; it was obviously not that of any carnivore or else it would have had that slightly musty savour that the meat-eating animals always carry about with them.

  The rhinoceros decided to investigate the scent, and he went up the wind with his usual surprisingly nimble trot.

  Everything got out of his way, for his anger was not lightly to be incurred.

  He came to a belt of trees and paused, for the light breeze had failed. In some thick grass nearby he picked up the trail again, for the tall grass held the scent very well, so that he could follow it without lowering his head.

  It was evident that about a dozen of the animals had passed there, and that they were not far away, for the scent was very fresh.

  Suddenly he came out of the trees, and there, showing plainly against the skyline, were eight elephants.

  They were looking straight at the rhinoceros, for they had heard him coming through the trees. There were two bull elephants, one very old, and the other in his prime; they were accompanied by two cows with two half grown, and two very young calves. The rhino’s first feeling was one of intense surprise and curiosity; then almost immediately he felt annoyed that these animals should be in his part of the bush.

  This annoyance turned into rage as he began to scratch the ground with his forefeet. The rims of his little eyes grew red, and he twitched his ears to and fro.

  Seven of the elephants faded silently into the trees, and the big bull remained in front of the rhino, about a hundred yards away from him.

  The elephant’s colossal ears were outspread, and he held his trunk stiffly out in the air, sniffing. His great tusks shone in the golden sunlight.

  The elephant’s eyes were no better than the rhino’s, but in the clear light of the setting sun they could see one another plainly.

  The rhinoceros flicked his little pig-like tail about for a moment, and then, tightly curling it over his back, he lowered his head and charged with a high pitched squeal like the whistle of a train.

  The earth shook as he thundered towards the elephant, who coiled back his trunk and bent his forelegs somewhat to prevent the rhino from dashing beneath him, and disembowelling him with a sweep of his horn. The rhino came down on the elephant in a cloud of dust; the elephant turned his great shoulder to take the shock and to avoid the rhino’s horn.

  They met with a dull thud; a cloud of dust flew up, and the rhino, deflected from his course by the elephant’s movement, careered on into a sapling, which he crushed flat.

  He had not expected the elephant to withstand his charge, but it did not dismay him at all. He turned, and charged again.

  They met shoulder to shoulder again, and this time the elephant slid back a little at the impact.

  The elephant could not receive the charging rhino on his tusks, as the great speed and weight might snap them, for they were very long compared with the rhino’s horn.

  At the third charge the rhino scored a long gash down the elephant’s side, and he turned quickly to follow up this advantage, but the elephant had turned more quickly, and bore down on the standing rhino, trumpeting shrilly.

  The rhinoceros staggered at the shock, and nearly fell, and before he could recover the elephant gored him furiously. Both tusks pierced him, but neither found a vital spot; before the elephant could press his advantage, the rhino ran in under the scarlet tusks.

  The elephant slipped, and fell squarely on top of the rhino, knocking all the breath out of his body, and not leaving him any room to use his horn. Before the rhino could get breath to rise the elephant scrambled off him and, kneeling, struck in with his tusks.

  Fortunately for the rhinoceros one tusk glanced off his tough hide, and the other missed him altogether, ploughing up the hard earth about an inch from his head.

  Regaining his feet, the rhino backed away; and the two great beasts stood glaring at one another.

  The sun set with the suddenness peculiar to tropical lands, and in the afterglow the rhinoceros circled round the elephant, seeking a good place from which to charge.

  With their weak eyes both of them were having difficulty now in seeing one another clearly.

  Finding a sandy hillock, the rhino lowered his head and charged. The elephant was standing in the shadow of a tall bush; the charging rhinoceros could hardly distinguish between elephant and shade, so his earth-shaking charge missed the greater part of its effect, as he struck the elephant a glancing blow. His great pace prevented him from pulling up, and he went crashing away into a thicket of thorn bushes.

  He pulled himself out, grunting, and galloped back. The elephant had disappeared. In the gathering shadows the elephants had noiselessly slipped away into the trees; the rhino had not heard them go, for with their soft, padded feet, the great brutes could move like shadows.

  The strengthening wind kept the scent of their retreat from the rhinoceros, who stood bewildered in the shadow where the elephant had stood, and where his own blood marked the place of the fight.

  He peered into the dusk, but saw nothing. Then with a grunt he swung round and made for the dense mass of thorn bushes in which he slept.

  He felt quite happy, for his wounds were not very serious, and they hardly troubled him; he thought in his own vague way that he had kept his part of the bush against the invaders. The fight had worked off all his moroseness; he was thoroughly satisfied with himself.

  As he went, everything, from the prowling lions downwards, made way for him. Tomorrow, he thought, he would show that other rhinoceros in the north what fighting really meant.

  THE WHITE COBRA

  X

  The White Cobra

  A pipal-tree grew in the open space about which the houses of the village of Kurasai were built. It was in the hollow roots of this tree that a cobra had his dwelling.

  Every evening, when the people of the village assembled in the open space to talk, the elders set a dish of warm milk at the roots of the tree for the cobra to drink.

  In many of the villages of the Punjab there are such cobras, but this one was peculiar in that it was white, with curious markings. It had first been seen on the eve of the feast of Krishna, so it was called Vakrishna, and it was looked upon as a possible incarnation of
the god.

  The inhabitants of Kurasai were Hindus, but they were tolerant people, and therefore they welcomed a Mohammedan snake-charmer, who turned up one evening, and said that he had come from Peshawar on a journey south. The fact was that Hussein – for such was his name – had heard of the white cobra, whose fame had spread, when he was performing with his snakes at a feast given by a petty rajah some forty miles south in Fakirpur, and, on hearing of it, had instantly desired it.

  On the same evening that he arrived he came to give an account of himself to the headman in the open space, which was also the court of justice for that village.

  Slowly he led the conversation round to cobras, of which, he said, he was inordinately fond. Now it happened that at this time the headman’s youngest son came with the warm milk for Vakrishna, but the snake would not come out on account of the stranger.

  The headman was chary of speech concerning the white cobra, towards which he bore himself reverently, being a Hindu, so Hussein did not press the matter, but announced that he would be staying for a few days to rest for his journey.

  The headman would only say that the cobra had brought the village good luck for some years, and the village priest bore him out in this, pointing out that the crops in Kurasai were better than those of any village for miles around. ‘Not that we are at all wealthy,’ he said hastily, as he saw Hussein listening attentively, ‘but we manage with economies.’ Then he turned the talk to more general matters, and the priest, eager to show the villagers the depth of his learning, questioned Hussein on certain points of the faith of Islam.

  It transpired that Hussein was a Sufi – a freethinker, as opposed to the orthodox Shiahs. This at once raised him in the estimation of the villagers, whose neighbours towards the north were strict Shiahs, and great cattle thieves.

  On the next day Hussein did not speak of snakes at all, but discussed the Government; he agreed with the headman in condemning it, and so, by the next day, he felt sufficiently confident to speak freely about the white cobra.