the thunder of your feet! The moment is almost here. And now--your
last chance, Muztagh!"

"Close down, close down!" Ahmad Din was shouting to his beaters. "The
thing is done in another moment. Hasten, pigs of the hills! Raise your
voice! Now! _Aihai!_"

The herd was at the very wings of the stockade. They had halted an
instant, milling, and the beaters increased their shouts. Only one of
all the herd seemed to know the danger--Muztagh himself, and he had
dropped from the front rank to the very rear. He stood with uplifted
trunk, facing the approaching rows of beaters. And there seemed to be
no break in the whole line.

The herd started to move on into the wings of captitivity; and they did
not heed his warning squeals to turn. The circle of fire drew nearer.
Then his trunk seemed to droop, and he turned, too. He could not break
the line. He turned, too, toward the mouth of the _keddah_.

But even as he turned, a brown figure darted toward him from the end of
the wing. A voice known long ago was calling to him--a voice that
penetrated high and clear above the babble of the beaters. "Muztagh!" it
was crying. "Muztagh!"

But it was not the words that turned Muztagh. An elephant cannot
understand words, except a few elemental sounds such as a horse or dog
can learn. Rather it was the smell of the man, remembered from long ago,
and the sound of his voice, never quite forgotten. For an elephant never
forgets.

"Muztagh! Muztagh!"

The elephant knew him now. He remembered his one friend among all the
human beings that he knew in his calfhood; the one mortal from whom he
had received love and given love in exchange.

"More firebrands!" yelled the men who held that corner of the wing.
"Firebrands! Where is Langur Dass?" but instead of firebrands that would
have frightened beast and aided men, Langur Dass stepped out from behind
a tree and beat at the heads of the right-wing guards with a bamboo cane
that whistled and whacked and scattered them into panic--yelling all the
while--"Muztagh! O my Muztagh! Here is an opening! Muztagh, come!".

And Muztagh did come--trumpeting--crashing like an avalanche, with
Langur Dass hard after him afraid, now that he had done the trick. And
hot on the trail of Langur Dass ran Ahmad Din, with his knife drawn not
meaning to let that prize be lost to him at less than the cost of the
trickster's life.

But it was not written that the knife should ever enter the flesh of
Langur Dass.