ess I believe was really numbness--then felt his hot breath like
a blast on my face, and let him have it, straight down the throat again!

He screamed--stopped--quivered right over me--toppled from the
knees--and fell like a landslide, pushed forward as he tumbled by the
weight behind, and held from rolling sidewise by the living tide on
either flank. I tried to spring back, but his falling trunk struck me
to earth. On either side of me a huge tusk drove into the ground, and
I lay still between them, as safe as if in bed, while the herd crashed
past to right and left for so many minutes that it seemed all the
universe was elephants--bulls, cows and calves all trumpeting in mad
desire to get away--away--anywhere at all so be it was not where they
then were.

Blood poured on me from the dead brute's throat--warm, slippery, sticky
stuff; but I lay still. I did not move when the crashing had all gone
by, but lay looking up at the monster that had willed his worst and,
seeking to slay, had saved me. Those are the moments when young men
summon all their calf-philosophy. I wondered what the difference was
between that brute and me, that I should be justified in slaying; that
I should be congratulated; that I should have been pitied, had the
touch-and-go reversed itself and he killed me. I knew there was a
difference that had nothing to do with shape, or weight, or size, but I
could not give it a name or lay my finger on it.

My reverie, or reaction, or whatever it was, was broken by Fred's
voice, flustered and out of breath, coming nearer at a great pace.

"I tell you the poor chap's dead as a door-nail! He's under that great
bull, I tell you! He's simply been charged and flattened out! What a
dog I was--what a green-horn--what a careless, fat-headed tomfool to
leave him alone like that! He was the least experienced of all of us,
and we let him take the full brunt of a charging herd! We ought to be
hung, drawn and quartered! I shall never forgive myself! As for you,
Will, it wasn't half as much your fault as mine! You were following
me. You expected me to give the orders, and I ought to have called a
halt away back there until we were all three in touch! I'll never
forgive myself--never!"

I crawled out then from between the tusks, and shook myself, much more
dazed than I expected, and full of an unaccountable desire to vomit.

"Damn your soul!" Fred fairly yelled at me. "What the hell d'you mean
by star