by his leader.
Zouga and Jan Cheroot ran together, stride for stride, their breath hissing and gasping in their throats, as they spent their last reserves to get in gunshot range before the bulls took the scent.
They traded all stealth, any attempt at concealment for speed, trusting that the weak eyesight of the old bulls would betray them. This time, the vagaries of the weather favoured them, for as they ran, the storm burst about them again.
It had held off just long enough to allow them to come up, and now the thick streamers of pale grey rain were drawn across the forest like lace curtains. he had light beneath the thick cloud banks gave them cover to cross the last few hundred yards unseen, and the tapping rain and the rush of the wind in the branches of the acacias muffled their racing-footfalls.
A hundred and fifty yards ahead of Zouga the old bull hit the man spoor, and it stopped him as though he had run into the side of an invisible cliff of glass. He flared back on his hind quarters, his back humping and his wrinkled ivoried head flying up high, the ragged banners of his ears filling like the mainsail of a tall ship, and clapping thunderously as he flapped them against his shoulders.
He froze like that for a long moment, groping at the tainted earth with the tip of his trunk, then he lifted it to his mouth and sprayed the scent into the open pink buds of his olfactory organs. The dread and hated odour struck him like a physical force and he went back another pace, then his trunk lifted straight into the air above him, and he wheeled and like a well-trained pair of coach horses his tall askari wheeled with him, shoulder to shoulder, and flank to flank, they began to run, and Zouga was still a hundred yards behind them.
Jan Cheroot dropped on to one knee into the mud, and flung up his musket. At the same instant, the askari checked slightly and swung left, crossing his leader's rear. Perhaps it was unintentional, but neither Zouga nor Jan Cheroot believed that. They knew that the younger bull was drawing fire, protecting the other with his own body. You want it? Take it then, you thunder! ' Jan Cheroot shouted angrily, he knew he had lost too much ground by pausing to fire.
Aiming for the younger bull, Jan Cheroot took the hip shot, and the bull staggered to it, flecks of red mud flying from his skin where the ball struck, and he broke his stride, favouring the damaged joint, swinging out of the line of his run, broadside to the hunters, while the great bull ran on alone.
Zouga could have killed the crippled bull with a heart shot, for the animal was down to a dragging, humpbacked trot and the range was less than thirty paces, but Zouga ran straight past him, never checking, hardly glancing at him, knowing he could leave Jan Cheroot to finish that business. He ran after the big bull, but despite his utmost endeavour, losing ground to him steadily.
Ahead of them, the ground dipped into a shallow open and beyond that it rose to another ridge on which saucer, the wild teak trees stood like sentinels in the grey rain.
The bull went down into the saucer, still in his initial burst of speed, stretching out so that his padfalls sounded like the steady beat of a bass drum, opening the gap between himself and his hunter, until he reached the bottom of the dip, and then be was almost halted.
His weight broke the surface of the swampy ground, and he sank through almost to his shoulders, and had to lunge for each step, with the glutinous mud sucking and squelching obscenely at each of his frantic movements.
Swiftly Zouga closed the range, and his spirits took wing, his exultation driving back his weakness and fatigue. He felt intoxicated with battle lust. He reached the swampy ground, and leapt from tussock to tussock of coarse swamp grass, while the bull struggled on ahead of him.
Closer and closer still Zouga came up to him, almost point-blank range, less than twenty yards and at last he stopped and balanced on one of the little islands of grass roots.
just ahead of him the bull had reached the far side of the swamp, and was heaving himself out on to the firm ground at the foot of the slope. The bull's front legs were higher than his still-bogged hindquarters, the whole slope of his back was exposed to Zouga, the knuckles of his massive spine -stood out clearly through the mudpainted skin and the arched staves of his rib cage were like the frames of a Viking longboat. Zouga fancied he could actually see the pounding rhythm of the great heart beating against them.
There could be no mistake this time. In the months since their first encounter, Zouga had become a skilled huntsman, he knew the soft and vital places in the mountainous bulk of an elephant's body. At this range and from this angle, the heavy ball would shatter the spine between the shoulder blades without losing any of its velocity, and it would go on deep, to the heart, to those thick serpentine arteries that fed the lungs.
He touched the hair trigger, and with a pop like a child's toy the gun misfired. The great grey beast heaved himself clear of the mud, and went away up the slope, now at last settling into the swinging ground-eating gait which would carry him fifty miles before nightfall.
Behind him Zouga reached the firm ground and flung down the useless weapon, dancing with impatience as he screamed at his bearers to bring up the second gun.
Matthew was fifty paces behind him, slipping and staggering in the swampy ground. Mark, Luke and John were strung out behind him. Come on! Come on! ' screamed Zouga, and snatched the second gun from Mathew, an dashed away up the slope. He had to catch the bull before he reached the crest of the slope, for down the other side he would go like an eagle on the wind.
Zouga ran now with all his heart, with all his will and the very last dregs of his strength, while behind him Matthew stopped, snatched up the misfired weapon from where Zouga had thrown it down, and, acting instinctively in the heat and excitement of the chase, he reloaded it.
He poured another handful of black powder on top of the charge and ball already in the barrel and tamped down a second quarter-pound ball of lead on top of it all.
In so doing he changed the gun from a formidable weapon to a lethal bomb that could maim or even kill the man who attempted to fire it. Then Matthew slipped another percussion cap over the nipple and ran on up the slope after Zouga.
The bull was nearing the crest of the ridge, and Zouga was coming up on him, but slowly, the difference in their speed just barely discernible. At last Zouga's strength was failing, he could keep this pace for minutes more and he knew when he finally stopped he would be on the verge of total physical collapse.
His vision was swimming and wavering, and his feet stumbled and slipped on the wet lichen -covered rocks of the slope, and the rain beat into his face, almost blinding him. Sixty yards ahead of him the bull reached the crest, and there he did something that Zouga had never seen a hunted elephant do before, he turned broadside, flaring his
