The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1889-02-15
AN ELEPHANTS RAGE.
Hunters Bair-Breadth Escape From an
Angry '.Tusker."

s
'Run, run, sahibs-the tusker has
gone must fmadl. He has broken
loose
We all started to our feet. George
had just gone down to the bank OF the
river 10 where the cooking was going
on, which lay nearer the mad Gle
plants picket. By this time the ter
ror-stricken servants We're flying in all
directions. The huge brute, with in
finite cunning, had all along been
making mighty efforts TO wrench up
the stake to which he was bound. This
at last he had succeeded in doing.
With the first desperate bound, or
.lurch forward, the heavy ankle chains,
frayed and worn in one link, had
snapped asurlder; and with the huge
stake trailing after him. he charged
down on the camp with a shrill
trumpeting scream of maddened ex-
citement and savage fury. The men
withthe spears waited not for the onset.
One poor fellow bending over his pot
of rice, trying to blow the smoldering
embers of his fire into a flame, was
seized by the long flexible trunk Of the
Infatuated brute, and had but time to
utter the terrible death scream which
had startled us, ere his head was
smashed like an egg she'll Oh the
powerfukknee Of the maddened mon
ster. He next made u rush at the
horses that, excited and frightened by
tho alamnp Mound than, Ana ct,oio
ing at their ropes, and buried his long
blunt tusks in the quivering TANKS of
n poor Caboolee horse that had
struggled in vain to get free.
All this vas the work of q momen
Poor George. who was bending over
some stew pan, wherein was simmer
ing some delicacy of his " eoncoc-
ton, was not aware of the suddenly
altered aspect of affairs, till the huge
towering bulk OF the elephant was
almost over him. Another instant
and he would have shared the fate of
the hapless mahout, had he not, with
admirable presence of mind, delivered
the Kissing hot stew, with quick dex-
terity and precision, full in the gaping
mouth Of the furious brute. His next
sensation, however, was that of flying
through the air, as the brute, with
one swing Of his mighty trunk, pro-
PEELED him on his aerial flight, and he
fell souse in the middle of the stream,
with the sauce pan still tightly
elutched in his hand.
Over the river we could see the in
iuriated brute, who had thus scattered
us, in a perfect frenzy of rage, kneel-
ing on the shapeless heap of cloth,
furniture, poles and ropes, and digging
his tusks, with savage fury, into the
hangings and canvass, in the very
abandonment of mad, uncomfortable
rage. We had little doubt but that
poor Mac lay crushed to death
smothered beneath the weight OF the
ponderous animal, or mangled out of
all likeness to humanity by the ter
rible tusks that we could see flashing
in the clear moonlight. 1t seemed an
age, this agony Of suspense. We held
our breaths, and dared not look into
each others faces. Every thing showed
as clear as If il had been day. We saw
the elephant tossing the strong canvas
canopy about as a dog would worry a
door-mat. Thrust after thrust was
made by the tusks into the folds OF
cloth. Raising his huge trunk the
brute would scream in the very frenzy
OF his wrath, and ut last, after what
seemed an age to us. but which in