Baptiste for them. Mr. Yates then asked me for all the particulars; and while I was telling him and Huguet, we heard a commotion in the street, and saw people running, and presently one of the waiters ran in and cried, —

'The elephant has killed a man, or near it."

4. Mr. Yates laughed, and said,-"Not quite so bad as that, for here is the man."

"No, no," cried the waiter, "it is not he; it is one of the foreigners."

He ran to the

Mr. Yates started up all trembling. stable; I followed him as I was; and there we saw a sight to make our blood run cold. On the corn-bin lay poor Baptiste, crushed into a mummy. How it happened there was no means of knowing; but no doubt, while he was groping in the straw for my wretched shoes, she struck him with her trunk, perhaps more than once.

5. Elliot had run at Baptiste's cry, but too late to save his life this time. He had drawn the man out of the straw as she was about to pound him to a jelly; and there the poor soul lay on the corn-bin, and by his side lay the things he had died for, the two old shoes. Elliot had found them in the straw, and put them there, of all places in the world.

6. Half an hour after breakfast-time Baptiste died. On this the elephant was detained by the authorities, and a coroner's inquest was summoned, and sat in the shambles on the victim, with the butcheress looking on at the proceedings. At this inquest two or three persons deposed on oath that the deceased had ill used her more than once in France in particular, that he had run a pitchfork into her two years ago; that he had been remonstrated with, but in vain; unfortunately, she had recognized him at once, and

:

killed him out of revenge for past cruelty, or to save herself from fresh outrages. This cooled the ardor against her; some even took part with her against the man.

7. There is a fixed opinion among men that an elephant is a good, kind creature. The opinion is fed by the proprietors of elephants, who must nurse the notion or lose their customers, and so a set tale is always ready to clear the guilty and criminate the sufferer; and this tale is greedily swallowed by the public. You will hear and read many such tales in the papers before you die. Every such tale is a lie. Baptiste died, not by any fault of his own, but through ignorance of the real nature of the fullgrown elephant, the cunningest, most treacherous and bloodthirsty beast that ever played the butcher among mankind.

8. After Newcastle we walked to York, and thence to Manchester. I crept along, thoroughly crestfallen. Months and months I had watched, and spied, and tried to pluck out the heart of this Tom Elliot's mystery: I had failed. Months and months I had tried to gain some influence over Djek: I had failed. But for Elliot, it was clear I should not live a single day within reach of her trunk. I was compelled to look up to him; and I did look up to him.

9. The proprietors had their cause of discontent too. We had silenced the law, but we could not silence opinion. Somehow suspicion hung about her in the very air wherever she went. She never throve in the English provinces after this; and finding this, Mr. Yates said, "She has lost her character here; send her to America." So he and Huguet joined partnership, and took this new speculation on their shoulders; and to America we went.

10. In one of the American towns, I forget which,passing by Djek's shed, I heard a tremendous row. I was about to call Elliot, thinking it was the old story, — somebody getting butchered. But something stopped me, and I looked cautiously in instead, and saw Tom Elliot walking into her with a pitchfork, she trembling like a schoolboy with her head in a corner and the blood streaming from her sides. As soon as he caught sight of me he left off and muttered unintelligibly. I said nothing; I thought

the more.

11. One day at noon we found ourselves fourteen miles from the town we had to play in that very night. Mr. Gallott had gone on to rehearse, and it behoved us to be marching after him. At this juncture old Tom, being rather drunk, feels a strong desire to be quite drunk, and refuses to stir from his brandy and water. Our exchequer was in no condition to be trifled with thus. If Elliot became helpless for an hour or two, we should arrive too late for the night's performance. I coaxed and threatened, but in vain. I was in despair, and, being in despair, came to a desperate resolution: I determined to try to master her myself then and there.

I told Pippin my project. He started back aghast; he viewed me in the light of a madman. Are you tired of your life?" said he. But I was inflexible. I was tired of waiting so many years the slave of a quadruped whose master was a brute.

12. Elephants are driven with a rod of steel sharpened at the end. About a foot from the end of this weapon is a large hook. By sticking this hook into an elephant's ear, and pulling it, you make her sensible which way you want her to go, and persuade her to comply.

Armed with this tool, I walked up to Djek's shed, and, in the most harsh and brutal voice I could command, bade her come out. She moved in the shed, but hesitated. I repeated the command still more repulsively, and out she came towards me very slowly.

13. With beasts such as lions, tigers, and elephants, great promptitude is the thing. Think for them! Don't give them time to think, or their thoughts may be evil. I had learned this much; so I introduced myself by driving the steel into Djek's ribs, and then hooking her ear, while Pippin looked down from a first-story window. If Djek had known how my heart was beating she would have killed me then and there; but, observing no hesitation on my part, she took it all as a matter of course, and walked with me like a lamb. I found myself alone with her on the road, and fourteen miles of it before us. It was a serious situation, but I was ripe for it now. All the old women's stories and traditions about an elephant's character had been driven out of me by experience, and washed out with blood. I had fathomed Elliot's art; I had got what the French call the riddle-key of Djek, and that key was "steel!"

14. On we marched, the best of friends. There were a number of little hills on the road, and, as we mounted one, a figure used to appear behind us on the crest of the last between us and the sky. This was the gallant Pippin, solicitous for his friend's fate, but desirous of not partaking of it if adverse. And still the worthy Djek and I marched on the best of friends. About a mile out of the town she put out her trunk, and tried to curl it round me in a caressing way. I met this overture by driving the steel into her till the blood squirted out of her. If I had not, the siren

would have killed me in the course of the next five minutes.

15. Whenever she relaxed her speed I drove the steel into her. When the afternoon sun smiled gloriously on us, and the poor thing felt nature stir in her heart, and began to frisk in her awful, clumsy way, pounding the great globe, I drove the steel into her. If I had not, I should not be here to relate this sprightly narrative.

16. Meantime, her stage-manager and financier were in great distress and anxiety. Four o'clock, and no elephant. At last they got so frightened they came out to meet us; and presently, to their amazement and delight, Djek strode up with her new general. Their ecstasy was great to think that the whole business was no longer at a drunkard's mercy.

17. "But how did you manage? How ever did her heart?"

steel.

ye

win

With this," said I, and showed them the bloody

By these means I rose from mademoiselle's slave to be her friend and companion.

CHARLES READE.

1. HIPPOPOTAMI had trodden a path along the margin of the river, as these animals came out to feed shortly after dark, and traveled from pool to pool. Wherever a plot of