ct for
safety that would carry them perhaps a hundred miles before dawn.

And right in the track of this terrible army of destruction lay the
sleeping camp, the camp fire smouldering and fluttering its flames on the
wind.

And the wind had shifted!

With the dark, as though the scene had been skilfully prepared by some
infernal dramatist, just as the cover of night shut down tight and sealed,
and suddenly, like a box-lid that had been upheld by the last rays of the
setting sun, just as the great stars burst out above as if at the touch of
an electric button, the wind shifted right round and blew due east.

This change of wind would dull the sound of the oncoming host to the
people at the camp; at the same time it would bring the scent of the human
beings to the elephants.

The effect of this might be to make them swerve away from the line they
were taking, but it would be impossible to tell for certain. The only sure
thing was, that if they continued in their course till within eyeshot of
the camp fire, they would charge it and destroy everything round about it
in their fury.

A camp fire to an angry elephant is the equivalent of a red rag to a
bull.

Thus the dramatic element of uncertainty was introduced into the tragedy
unfolding on the plains, and the great stars seemed to leap like expectant
hearts of fire till the moon broke over the horizon, casting the flying
shadows of the great beasts before them.

The first furious stampede had settled into a rapid trot, to a sound like
the sound of a hundred muffled drums beating a rataplan.

Instinct told the herd that immediate danger was past, also that for
safety they would have to cover an immense space of country; so they
settled to the pace most suitable for the journey. And what a pace it was,
and what a sight!

Drifting across the country before the great white moon, fantastic beasts
and more fantastic shadows, in three divisions line ahead, with the lanes
of moonlight ruled between each line; calves by the cows, bulls in the
van, they went, keeping to the scent of the track they had come by as
unswervingly as a train keeps to the metals.

The giraffe was still with them. He and his shadow, gliding with
compass-like strides a hundred yards away from the southward column; and
just as the scent of the camp came to his mammoth friends, the sight of
the camp fire, like a red spark, struck his keen eyes.

With a rasping note of warning he swerved to the so