The Cliff Climbers. Reid Mayne
slow in following him; and Ossaroo also ventured from his hiding-place.
A dark mass – in form like a quadruped, but one of gigantic size – could be seen going off in the direction of the lake. It moved in majestic silence; but it could have been no shadow, for on crossing the stream – near the point where the latter debouched into the lake – the plashing of its feet could be heard as it waded through the water, and eddies could be seen upon the calm surface. A simple shadow would not have made such a commotion as that?
“Sahibs!” said Ossaroo, in a tone of mysterious gravity, “he be one ob two ting. He eider be de god Brahma, or – ”
“Or what?” demanded Caspar.
“An ole rogue.”
Chapter Six.
A talk about elephants
“An old rogue?” said Caspar, repeating the words of the shikaree. “What do you mean by that, Ossy?”
“What you Feringhee, sahib, call rogue elephant.”
“Oh! an elephant!” echoed Karl and Caspar – both considerably relieved at this natural explanation of what had appeared so like a supernatural apparition.
“Certainly the thing looked like one,” continued Caspar.
“But how could an elephant enter this valley?”
Ossaroo could not answer this question. He was himself equally puzzled by the appearance of the huge quadruped; and still rather inclined to the belief that it was some of his trinity of Brahminee gods, that had for the nonce assumed the elephantine form. For that reason he made no attempt to explain the presence of such an animal in the valley.
“It is possible for one to have come up here from the lower country,” remarked Karl, reflectively.
“But how could he get into the valley?” again inquired Caspar.
“In the same way as we got in ourselves,” was Karl’s reply; “up the glacier and through the gorge.”
“But the crevasse that hinders us from getting out? You forget that, brother? An elephant could no more cross it than he could fly; surely not?”
“Surely not,” rejoined Karl. “I did not say that he could have crossed the crevasse.”
“Oh! you mean that he may have come up here before we did?”
“Exactly so. If it be an elephant we have seen – and what else can it be?” pursued Karl, no longer yielding to a belief in the supernatural character of their nocturnal visitant – “it must of course have got into the valley before us. The wonder is our having seen no signs of such an animal before. You, Caspar, have been about more than any of us. Did you never, in your rambles, observe anything like an elephant’s track?”
“Never. It never occurred to me to look for such a thing. Who would have thought of a great elephant having climbed up here? One would fancy such unwieldy creatures quite incapable of ascending a mountain.”
“Ah! there you would be in error: for, singular as it may appear, the elephant is a wonderful climber, and can make his way almost anywhere that a man can go. It is a fact, that in the island of Ceylon the wild elephants are often found upon the top of Adam’s Peak – to scale which is trying to the nerves of the stoutest travellers. It would not be surprising to find one here. Rather, I may say, it is not: for now I feel certain what we have just seen is an elephant, since it can be nothing else. He may have entered this valley before us – by straying up the glacier as we did, and crossing the chasm by the rock bridge – which I know he could have done as well as we. Or else,” continued Karl, in his endeavour to account for the presence of the huge creature, “he may have come here long ago, even before there was any crevasse. What is there improbable in his having been here many years – perhaps all his life, and that may be a hundred years or more?”
“I thought,” said Caspar, “that elephants were only found on the plains, where the vegetation is tropical and luxuriant.”
“That is another popular error,” replied Karl. “So far from affecting tropical plains, the elephant prefers to dwell high up on the mountains; and whenever he has the opportunity, he climbs thither. He likes a moderately cool atmosphere – where he may be less persecuted by flies and other troublesome insects: since, notwithstanding his great strength and the thickness of his hide, so small a creature as a fly can give him the greatest annoyance. Like the tiger, he is by no means exclusively a tropical animal; but can live, and thrive too, in a cool, elevated region, or in a high latitude of the temperate zone.”
Karl again expressed surprise that none of them had before that time observed any traces of this gigantic quadruped, that must have been their neighbour ever since the commencement of their involuntary residence in the valley. Of course this surprise was fully shared by Caspar. Ossaroo participated in it, but only to a very slight degree. The shikaree was still inclined towards indulging in his superstitious belief that the creature they had seen was not of the earth, but some apparition of Brahma or Vishnu.
Without attempting to combat this absurd fancy, his companions continued to search for an explanation of the strange circumstance of their not having sooner encountered the elephant.
“After all,” suggested Caspar, “there is nothing so strange about it. There are many large tracts of the valley we have not explored; for instance, that wide stretch of black forest that lies at its upper end. Neither of us has ever been through there since the first two days, when we followed the deer all round, and went afterwards to examine the cliff. For myself, I never strayed that way while hunting – because I always found the game in the open grounds near the lake. Now the elephant may have his lair in that piece of forest, and only come out at night. As for tracks, no doubt there are plenty, but I never thought of looking for them. You know, brother, we have been too busy in making our tree-bridge, and afterwards exploring the cavern, to think of much else.”
Karl admitted the truth of these observations; for it was as Caspar had alleged. During the whole time of their residence in the valley, the minds of all three, filled with anxiety about the future, had been keenly bent upon devising some means of escape; and on this account they had given very little attention to anything that did not in some way contribute to that end. Even Caspar, in his hunting excursions, had not gone over one-half of the valley; nor had these excursions been very numerous. In three or four days he had procured as much meat as was necessary. This had been carefully cured by Ossaroo, and formed the staple of their daily food. Only upon rare occasions were the guns afterwards used to procure a little fresh provision – such as a brace of wild duets from the lake, or one of the smaller game animals which could be found almost any morning within gunshot distance of the hut. For these reasons many parts of the valley had been left unvisited; and it was deemed possible enough for even a great elephant to have been all the time dwelling within its boundaries, unseen by any of the party. Indulging in these conjectures, all three remained awake for more than an hour; but as the subject of their speculations appeared to have gone altogether away, they gradually came to the conclusion that he was not going to return at least for that night – and their confidence being thus restored, they once more betook themselves to sleep – resolved in future to keep a sharp lookout for the dangerous neighbour that had so unexpectedly presented himself to their view.
Chapter Seven.
Re-stocking the guns
Next morning all three were astir betimes, and out of the hut by the earliest light of day. Karl and Caspar were anxious to obtain more definite information about the elephant, whose existence Ossaroo was still inclined to doubt. Indeed, with the exception of the three or four shrieking whistles to which the animal had given utterance, so silently and mysteriously had he come and departed, that they might almost have fancied the whole thing a dream.
But such an immense creature could not move about, without leaving some traces of his presence; and as he had crossed the stream, or rather a little embayment of the lake into which the stream emptied itself, no doubt his tracks would be found on the sandy shore.
As soon, therefore, as the day broke, all three started