Thud could not be persuaded to mount Ma Ping again. Io pleaded to be allowed to walk, at least for a part of the stage; so she and Maha descended the elephant ladder, and for an hour Thud had the howdah all to himself. Coldstream then made the lazy lad descend, to walk the rest of the way, while his sister and her attendant resumed their places. Thud grumbled not a little, and thought the stage interminable. However, the halting-place for the night was reached at last: it was under a thick banyan tree, whose dense foliage would protect from the night dews those who had to sleep on the ground. The servants were busy pitching the small tent which Coldstream had brought for his wife. “I can’t sleep on the bare earth,” said Thud doggedly; “it is so hard, and I should catch my death of cold.”
“I am going to sleep on the ground,” observed Oscar. “We have plenty of rugs and wraps. I have often made my bed beneath a tree.”
“You, I daresay; but I’m different. I’ve a theory that development of brain makes the bodily frame more delicate, and that philosophers need to sleep softer and fare better than other men.”
“You were forewarned as to what you would have to meet,” was Oscar’s quiet reply.
“And then on the ground one is not safe from all sorts of reptiles—ants, caterpillars, centipedes, scorpions, snakes!” cried Thud, raising his voice to more emphatic pitch till he reached his climax of horrors.
“Specimens for your natural history collection,” said Oscar.
“O Thud! look at that glorious full moon rising over the plain; feel the fresh, sweet air on your cheek. There is pleasure—luxury, in this camping out!” cried Io.
“For those who like it,” growled Thud.
The night passed peaceably with the travellers; even Thud had no cause to grumble. Coldstream was up with the first dawn of light. A magnificent imperial pigeon, and two green ones brought down by his gun, afforded the travellers a sumptuous breakfast, and put even Thud into comparative good-humour. Moreover, he put some of the feathers into his bag.
Then put howdah on elephant, saddle on tat, burdens on mules, and off and away!
The country soon changed its character as the travellers wended on their way. Instead of paddy-fields, bamboo clumps, and occasional groups of trees, the ground rose into hills, and progression became more difficult. The elephant came at last to places where it seemed to be impossible that so heavy an animal should make its way. At one spot there was an incline so steep that Io, though a girl of spirit, became a little nervous.
“I do not think that we can get down there,” she said to her husband. “I should be frightened to see you attempt to ride down on the tat; the elephant would certainly come to grief.”
“Can he manage it?” asked Coldstream of the kahaut, who was perched on the animal’s neck.
“He manage it cleverly,” was the reply.
And the creature did manage the descent cleverly. A sudden movement, which jerked Io and Maha backward in the howdah, and made them cling to its sides, gave notice that the huge beast which they rode had knelt on his hinder legs; then, putting the thick fore legs together, the elephant slid down the steep incline, and perfectly preserving his balance, landed safely at the bottom.
“I say, that’s what I call clever!” cried Thud. “I should not like to have been on the back of the beast!”
“My brave wifie!” exclaimed Oscar; “you did not look in the least afraid.”
“But I felt so—rather; and I held on very fast,” was the candid reply.
The descent was also cleverly managed by the active little tat and the sure-footed mules. Only Thud concluded his performance of the feat by a roll in the dust.
After proceeding for another hour the travellers came in sight of a village nestling under the shelter of a palm-crowned height.
“What a picturesque little place, with its bamboo huts and thatched roofs!” exclaimed Io. “I wish, Oscar, that you had brought your sketch-book as well as your gun.”
“The village would make a good subject for a picture, and is pleasing at a distance,” said Oscar. “But peaceful and fair as it looks, how much of vice, misery, superstition, and idolatry are likely to be found in its dwellings!”
“I do not like to think that,” said Io. “See the cattle grazing about, and the goats with their kids; look at the buffaloes enjoying themselves in the big pond, with only their snouts and horns above the surface of the water.”
“Where there are cows I have an idea that there must be milk,” observed Thud. “I’m as thirsty as a frog, and as tired as a hack on Holborn Hill.”
“Oh! a drink of milk would be a luxury,&rdq............