The Elephant God

Gordon Casserly

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• Publié par: phoul
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 17
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Elephant God, by Gordon Casserly This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: The Elephant God Author: Gordon Casserly Release Date: November 17, 2004 [EBook #14076] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ELEPHANT GOD *** Produced by Suzanne Shell, David Garcia and the PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team. THE ELEPHANT GOD BY GORDON GASSERLY NEW YORK 1921 TO A CERTAIN ROGUE ELEPHANT RESIDENT IN THE TERAI FOREST THE SLAYER OF DIVERS MEN AND WOMEN THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF MUCH INSTRUCTION AND IN THE HOPE THAT SOME DAY IN THE HAPPY HUNTING GROUNDS THEY MAY MEET AGAIN AND DECIDE THE ISSUE FOREWORD TO AMERICAN EDITION Twenty years ago I dedicated my first book, The Land of the Boxers; or China Under the Allies , to the American officers and soldiers of the expeditionary forces then fighting in the Celestial Empire—as well as to their British comrades. And when, some years afterwards, I was visiting their country, right glad I was that I had thus offered my slight tribute to the valour of the United States Army. For from the Pacific to the Atlantic I met with a hospitality and a kindness that no other land could excel and few could equal. And ever since then, I have felt deep in debt to all Americans and have tried in many parts of our Empire to repay to those who serve under the Star Spangled Banner a little of what I owe to their fellowcountrymen. Only those who have experienced that sympathetic American kindness can realise what it is. It is all that gives me courage to face the reading public as a writer of fiction and attempt to depict to it the fascinating world of an Indian jungle, the weird beasts that people it, and the stranger humans that battle with them in it. The magic pen of a Kipling alone could do justice to that wonderful realm of mountain and forest that is called the Terai—that fantastic region of woodland that stretches for hundreds of miles along the foot of the Himalayas, that harbours in its dim recesses the monsters of the animal kingdom, quaint survivals of a vanished race—the rhinoceros, the elephant, the bison, and the hamadryad, that great and terrible snake which can, and does, pursue and overtake a mounted man, and which with a touch of its poisoned fang can slay the most powerful brute. The huge Himalayan bear roams under the giant trees, feeding on fruit and honey, yet ready to shatter unprovoked the skull of a poor woodcutter. Those savage striped and spotted cats, the tiger and the panther, steal through it on velvet paw and take toll of its harmless denizens. But, if I cannot describe it as I would, at least I have lived the life of the wild in the spacious realm of the Terai. I would that I had the power to make others feel what I have felt, the thrill that comes when facing the onrush of the bloodthirstiest of all fierce brutes, a rogue elephant, or the joy of seeing a charging tiger check and crumple up at the arresting blow of a heavy bullet. I have followed day after day from dawn to dark and fought again and again a fierce outlaw tusker elephant that from sheer lust of slaughter had killed men, women, and children and carried on for years a career of crime unbelievable. No one that knows the jungle well will refuse to credit the strangest story of what wild animals will do. Of all the swarming herds of wild elephants in the Terai, the Mysore, or the Ceylon jungles no man, white or black, has ever seen one that had died a natural death. Yet many have watched them climbing up the great mountain rampart of the Himalayas towards regions where human foot never followed. The Death Place of the Elephants is a legend in which all jungle races firmly believe, but no man has ever found it. The mammoths live a century and a half—but the time comes when each of them must die. Yet no human eye watches its death agony. Those who know elephants best will most readily credit the strangest tales of their doings. And there are men—white men—whose power over wild beasts and wilder fellow men outstrips the novelist's imagination, the true tale of whose doings no resident in a civilised land would believe. GORDON CASSERLY . CONTENTS FOREWORD TO AMERICAN EDITION CHAPTER I.—THE SECRET MISSION CHAPTER II.—A ROGUE ELEPHANT CHAPTER III.—A GIRL OF THE TERAI CHAPTER IV.—THE MADNESS OF BADSHAH CHAPTER V.—THE DEATH-PLACE CHAPTER VI.—A DRAMATIC INTRODUCTION CHAPTER VII.—IN THE RAJAH'S PALACE CHAPTER VIII.—A BHUTTIA RAID CHAPTER IX.—THE RESCUE OF NOREEN CHAPTER X.—A STRANGE HOME-COMING CHAPTER XI.—THE MAKING OF A GOD CHAPTER XII.—THE LURE OF THE HILLS CHAPTER XIII.—THE PLEASURE COLONY CHAPTER XIV.—THE TANGLED SKEIN OF LOVE CHAPTER XV.—THE FEAST OF THE GODDESS KALI CHAPTER XVI.—THE PALACE OF DEATH CHAPTER XVII.—A TRAP CHAPTER XVIII.—THE CAT AND THE TIGER CHAPTER XIX.—TEMPEST CHAPTER XX.—THE GOD OF THE ELEPHANTS THE ELEPHANT GOD CHAPTER I THE SECRET MISSION "The letters, sahib," said the post orderly, blocking up the doorway of the bungalow. Kevin Dermot put down his book as the speaker, a Punjaubi Mohammedan in white undress, slipped off his loose native shoes and entered the room barefoot, as is the custom in India. "For this one a receipt is needed," continued the sepoy, holding out a long official envelope registered and insured and addressed, like all the others, to "The Officer Commanding, Ranga Duar, Eastern Bengal." Major Dermot signed the receipt and handed it to the man. As he did so the scream of an elephant in pain came to his ears. "What is that?" he asked the post orderly. "It is the mahout, Chand Khan, beating his hathi (elephant), sahib," replied the sepoy looking out. Dermot threw the unopened letters on the table, and, going out on the verandah of his bungalow, gazed down on the parade ground which lay a hundred feet below. Beyond it at the foot of the small hill on which stood the Fort was a group of trees, to two of which a transport elephant was shackled by a fore and a hind leg in such a way as to render it powerless. Its mahout, or driver, keeping out of reach of