that elephants have a sense of humor. They always know
where to keep a monkey, and it is the monkey's business to know
when the elephant is going to indulge in humor.

As elephants do not know that monkeys cannot swim, I was afraid
that if Kopee was not careful, Kari might throw him into the
river for fun, and that would have been the end of him.

I soon forgot the elephant and the monkey, however, and fell
asleep on the river bank. I was awakened by a terrible cry from
the monkey and a trumpeting from the elephant. I sat up with a
start and I saw Kopee sitting on the ground shivering with
terror, and Kari standing in front of him, waving his trunk in
the air and trumpeting for all he was worth. I lay on the ground
and lifted myself on my elbows. Through the elephant's legs I saw
a great snake, right under him, held almost between his
fore-legs. My blood congealed in terror. Of course Kari was five
years old; his skin was so thick that the cobra could never bite
deep enough to bury its poisonous fangs in his arteries. The
monkey was hypnotized with fear, but he could neither run away,
nor go forward, nor come to me. He sat there shivering with
terror.

I crept slyly around the elephant and approached Kopee. I knew
that if I touched him, he would turn around and bite me. He was
so frightened that anything that touched him would mean to his
excited brain only the sting of the snake. The idea that he would
be stung to death had taken possession of the whole animal.

I could now see what had happened. The elephant had stepped on
the middle of the snake. Its back was broken and it could not
move, but there was life in the rest of its body and it was
standing erect like a sharp column of ebony, its black hood with
a white mark on it spread out as large as the palm of a man's
hand. Of course, it could not stay in that position long. It
swayed and almost fell to the ground. The moment that happened,
Kari raised his foot and put it down on the snake's neck. But the
snake lifted up its head in such a way that whenever there was a
chance for the elephant to put his foot on its head it would
immediately raise itself on its broken back. Its agony must have
been great, yet it would not give in for a long time.

As the snake could not move with its back broken and the foot of
the elephant still on it, I knew I had better go and kill it with
a stick. As I approached it with my stick, the monkey's eyes
which had been fixed on t