anch.

Then the stream got us going again, and swung the butt end of the tree
around so that I was forced by it backward through the arch of the
bridge; and after that for more than a mile we were waltzed round and
round past sand-banks where the alligators lay on the look-out for
half-burned corpses from the burning ghats higher up.

At last we swung round a curve in the river and came on a quiet bay
where they were washing elephants. The current swung the tree inshore to
a point where it struck a submerged sand-bank and stuck there; and there
we lay with the current racing by, and King bobbing up and down with his
head out of water, and I too weak by that time to break off the twig
around which his loin-cloth was wrapped.

Well, there we were; but after a few minutes I raised enough steam for
the whistle at all events. I yelled until my own ear-drums seemed to be
bursting and my lungs ached from the pressure on the water in them, and
after what seemed an eternity one of the mahouts on shore heard me.

Hope surged triumphant! I could see him wave his arm, and already I saw
visions of dry land again, and a disappointed Yama! But I was
overlooking one important point: we were in India, where rescues are not
undertaken in a hurry.

He called a conference. I saw all the mahouts gather together in one
place and stare at us and talk. They swung their arms as they argued. I
don't know what argument it was that finally appealed to the mahouts,
but after an interminable session one of them fetched a long rope and
nine or ten of them climbed on the backs of three big elephants. They
worked their way a little bit upstream, and then came as close as the
elephants dared. One of the big brutes felt his way cautiously to within
twenty yards, and then threw up his trunk and refused to budge another
inch.

At that a lean, naked, black man stood up on his rump and paid out the
rope down-stream. He had to make nine or ten attempts before it finally
floated within reach of my hand. Then I made it fast to the tree and,
taking King in my right arm, started to work my way along it. It was
just as well I did that, and got clear of the branch; for the mahouts
passed the rope around the elephant's neck and set him to hauling; he
rolled the tree over and over, and that would surely have been the end
of King and me if we had been within reach of the overturning branches.
As it was I clung to the rope and the elephant hauled the lot of us hi