The balloon skimmed this tall grass without bending it, like a gigantic butterfly: not an obstacle was in sight; it was an ocean of verdure without a single breaker.
“We might proceed a long time in this style,” remarked Kennedy; “I don’t see one tree that we could approach, and I’m afraid that our hunt’s over.”
“Wait, Dick; you could not hunt anyhow in this grass, that grows higher than your head. We’ll find a favorable place presently.”
In truth, it was a charming excursion that they were making now—a veritable navigation on this green, almost transparent sea, gently undulating in the breath of the wind. The little car seemed to cleave the waves of verdure, and, from time to time, coveys of birds of magnificent plumage would rise fluttering from the tall herbage, and speed away with joyous cries. The anchors plunged into this lake of flowers, and traced a furrow that closed behind them, like the wake of a ship.
All at once a sharp shock was felt—the anchor had caught in the fissure of some rock hidden in the high grass.
“We are fast!” exclaimed Joe.
These words had scarcely been uttered when a shrill cry rang through the air, and the following phrases, mingled with exclamations, escaped from the lips of our travellers:
“What’s that?”
“A strange cry!”
“Look! Why, we’re moving!”
“The anchor has slipped!”
“No; it holds, and holds fast too!” said Joe, who was tugging at the rope.
“It’s the rock, then, that’s moving!”
An immense rustling was noticed in the grass, and soon an elongated, winding shape was seen rising above it.
“A serpent!” shouted Joe.
“A serpent!” repeated Kennedy, handling his rifle.
“No,” said the doctor, “it’s an elephant’s trunk!”
“An elephant, Samuel?”
And, as Kennedy said this, he drew his rifle to his shoulder.
“Wait, Dick; wait!”
“That’s a fact! The animal’s towing us!”
“And in the right direction, Joe—in the right direction.”
The elephant was now making some headway, and soon reached a clearing where his whole body could be seen. By his gigantic size, the doctor recognized a male of a superb species. He had two whitish tusks, beautifully curved, and about eight feet in length; and in these the shanks of the anchor had firmly caught. The animal was vainly trying with his trunk to disengage himself from the rope that attached him to the car.
“Get up—go ahead, old fellow!” shouted Joe, with delight, doing his best to urge this rather novel team. “Here is a new style of travelling!—no more horses for me. An elephant, if you please!”
“But where is he taking us to?” said Kennedy, whose rifle itched in his grasp.
“He’s taking us exactly to where we want to go, my dear Dick. A little patience!”
“ ‘Wig-a-more! wig-a-more!’ as the Scotch country folks say,” shouted Joe, in high glee. “Gee-up! gee-up there!”
The huge animal now broke into a very rapid gallop. He flung his trunk from side to side, and his monstrous bounds gave the car several rather heavy thumps. Meanwhile the doctor stood ready, hatchet in hand, to cut the rope, should need arise.
“But,” said he, “we shall not give up our anchor until the last moment.”
This drive, with an elephant for the team, lasted about an hour and a half; yet the animal did not seem in the least fatigued. These immense creatures can go over a great deal of ground, and, from one day to another, are found at enormous distances from there they were last seen, like the whales, whose mass and speed they rival.
“In fact,” said Joe, “it’s a whale that we have harpooned; and we’re only doing just what whalemen do when out fishing.”
But a change in the nature of the ground compelled the doctor to vary his style of locomotion. A dense grove of “calmadores” was descried on the horizon, about three miles away, on the north of the prairie. So it became necessary to detach the balloon from its draught-animal at last.
Kennedy was entrusted with the job of bringing the elephant to a halt. He drew his rifle to his shoulder, but his position was not favorable to a successful shot; so that the first ball fired flattened itself on the animal’s skull, as it would have done against an iron plate. The creature did not seem in the least troubled by it; but, at the sound of the discharge, he had increased his speed, and now was going as fast as a horse at full gallop.
“The deuce!” ejaculated Kennedy.
“What a solid head!” commented Joe.
“We’ll try some conical balls behind the shoulder-joint,” said Kennedy, reloading his rifle with care. In another moment he fired.
The animal gave a terrible cry, but went on faster than ever.
“Come!” said Joe, taking aim with another gun, “I must help you, or we’ll never end it.” And now two balls penetrated the creature’s side.
The elephant halted, lifted his trunk, and resumed his run toward the wood with all his speed; he shook his huge head, and the blood began to gush from his wounds.
“Let us keep up our fire, Mr. Kennedy.”
“And a continuous fire, too,” urged the doctor, “for we are close on the woods.”
Ten shots more were discharged. The elephant made a fearful bound; the car and balloon cracked as though everything were going to pieces, and the shock made the doctor drop his hatchet on the ground.
The situation was thus rendered really very alarming; the anchor-rope, which had securely caught, could not be disengaged, nor could it yet be cut by the knives of our aeronauts, and the balloon was rushing headlong toward the wood, when the animal received a ball in the eye just as he lifted his head. On this he halted, faltered, his knees bent under him, and he uncovered his whole flank to the assaults of his enemies in the balloon.
“A bullet in his heart!” said Kennedy, discharging one last rifle-shot.
The elephant uttered a long bellow of terror and agony, then raised himself up for a moment, twirling his trunk in the air,
