I was carrying my long
two-ounce rifle, and I was passing beneath the monkey-covered
boughs, when I suddenly observed a young tree of the thickness of
a man's thigh shaking violently just before me.
It happened that the jungle was a little thicker in his spot, and
at the same moment that I observed the tree shaking almost over
me, I passed the immense stem of one of those smooth-barked trees
which grow to such an enormous size on the banks of rivers. At
the same moment that I passed it I was almost under the trunk of
a single bull elephant, who was barking the stem with his tusk as
high as he could reach, with his head thrown back. I saw in an
instant that the only road to his brain lay through his upper
jaw, in the position in which he was standing; and knowing that
he would discover me in another moment, I took the eccentric line
for his brain, and fired upward through his jaw. He fell stone
dead, with the silk patch of the rifle smoking in the wound.
Now in this position no light gun could have killed that
elephant; the ball had to pass through the roots of the upper
grinders, and keep its course through hard bones and tough
membranes for about two feet before it could reach the brain; but
the line was all right, and the heavy metal and charge of powder
kept the ball to its work.
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