een chewing.

"How dah you?" roared Peter, in the loudest and best imitation he could
produce of the Major in one of his angry fits. "How dah you? I say.
How dah you? You flat-nosed little run-amucker! Speak like that to a
British officer!" And he emphasised his last words by raising the spear
and bringing the butt down again heavily on Rajah's neck, his energetic
action making the great elephant stir uneasily, so that the speaker was
nearly dislodged. "Quiet, will you?" roared Peter, making a fresh grab
at the branch he held. "Want to have me overboard?"

The elephant grunted.

"Yah-h-h-h-h!" roared Peter, raising the spear he held; and poising it
after the fashion he had learned from the Malays, he seemed about to
hurl it at the little mahout, whose head and shoulders he could see
plainly now just beyond Rajah's shabby little tail. "You dare to say
another word, and I will pin you where you sit, like the miserable
little beetle you are! Now then.--Here, steady, Rajah!--Hold tight,
Mister Archie! I am coming to you; but just you make a show of that
other spear. You needn't get up, but make believe to be about to chuck
it at him if he isn't pretty careful."

Archie held on more tightly to the rope girths by which he had kept his
position so long, while Peter rather unsteadily joined him, bringing
himself so much nearer to the mahout that he could have pretty well
touched him had he extended his spear.

"I say, Mister Archie," he said, "if old Rajah takes it into his head to
move on now, I shall pitch right on to old Chocolate there.--Yah-h!" he
roared again.

The mahout, who had apparently begun to recover from his astonishment,
had changed his ankus from one hand to the other, and was in the act of
drawing his kris, when Peter yelled at him again and made so fierce a
thrust with his spear that all the little fellow's pugnacity died out,
or, as it were, passed away in a shriek of fear.

"Ah, that's better," cried Peter. "Now then, you have got to do what I
tell you."

The mahout's eyes rolled as he thrust back his kris into its sheath, the
man's face turning from a rich, pale-brown hue to a dirty, pallid mud
colour.

"Here, give us that kris, Mister Archie," continued Peter in a
blustering tone.

"You are not going to use it, Pete?" half-whispered the subaltern.

"You will see, sir," cried the lad fiercely; and then he almost roared,
"He'd better not give me any of his nonsense!" And taking th