The new dwelling-place, which Stasch had named “Cracow,” was all ready for them in three days. Most of the baggage had been placed in “the men’s room,” and even before the house was ready the four youngsters were well sheltered there during a severe storm. The rainy season had now set in in earnest. This rain is not like our long autumnal storms, when the sky is covered over with lowering clouds and the monotonous, dreary weather lasts for weeks. Here the dense clouds which water the earth so plentifully are dissipated by the wind several times a day. Then the sun shines again as though just emerging from a bath and floods the cliffs, the stream, the trees, and the entire jungle with its golden light. One can almost see the grass grow. The foliage on the trees is luxuriant, and before one fruit drops off another is forming. The excessive moisture in the air makes it so transparent that even far-off objects stand out distinctly and one can see to a great distance. On the horizon there are beautiful rainbows, the colors of which are always reflected in the waterfall.

During the short dawn and the twilight the sky shone and reflected a thousand bright colors more wonderful than the children had ever seen even in the Libyan desert. The clouds hanging down nearest the water were cherry-colored, and the higher regions, better lighted, looked like seas of purple and gold, and the small, puffy clouds shone alternately like rubies, amethysts, and opals. At night, in the intervals between showers, the moon converted the dewdrops hanging on the leaves of the acacias and mimosas into diamonds, and the tropical light shone much more brilliantly through the fresh, transparent air than at other seasons of the year.

Under the waterfall, in the swamps formed by the stream, the croaking of frogs and the melancholy concert of toads rang out, and the fireflies, like shooting stars, flitted through the bamboo bushes from one bank to the other.

When the clouds again hid the starry sky and it began to rain, the night became pitch dark, and inside the tree it was as dark as a cellar. To remedy this Stasch got Mea to melt some fat taken from the slain animals, and out of a tin can be made a lamp, which he hung under the upper opening that the children called a window. The light from this window could be seen afar off through the darkness, and while it frightened away the wild animals, it attracted bats and night birds, so that finally Kali had to put up a kind of a curtain of thorns, like the one with which he closed the lower opening for the night. In the daytime, between showers, if the weather were fine, the children would leave “Cracow” and wander over the entire strip of land. Stasch would hunt gazels, antelopes, and ostriches, herds of which often appeared on the banks of the lower stream, and Nell would visit her elephant, which at first only trumpeted when he wanted some food, but later began trumpeting when he felt lonesome for his little friend. He always greeted her with signs of joy, and at once began to prick up his large ears whenever he heard her voice or step even far away.

One day when Stasch was out hunting and Kali was fishing above the waterfall, Nell decided to go to the rock which blocked the gorge to see if Stasch had done anything to remove it. Mea, who was busy preparing the mid-day meal, did not notice her departure. On her way Nell picked a peculiar kind of begonia,^[23] which grew in large quantities between the crevices of the rock; she approached the slope over which they had formerly ridden out of the gorge, and walked till she came to the rock. The large boulder had broken off the side of the cliff, and barred the mouth of the ravine as before, but Nell noticed that there was still enough room between it and the wall of the cliff for even a grown person to get through easily. She hesitated a while and then passed through, gaining the opposite side. But there was still another bend, which had to be passed before reaching the broad mouth of the gorge, enclosed by the waterfall. Nell began to consider what she should do. “I will go only a little farther; then I will look from behind a rock and take a peep at the elephant; he will not spy me, and then I shall turn back.” So she crept forward until she reached the place where the gorge suddenly widened into a small, deep valley, and then she saw the elephant. He stood with his back toward her, his trunk in the water, taking a drink. This encouraged her, and keeping close to the wall of the cliff, she walked a few steps, bending forward a little more; just then the giant beast, who was going to take a bath, turned his head, saw the little girl and immediately started toward her.

Nell was thoroughly frightened, but having no time to retreat, she made her very prettiest courtesy, and then extending her hand in which she held the begonias, said in a rather trembling voice:

“Good morning, dear elephant! I know you will not hurt me, and so I have come here to say good-day to you—I have only these little flowers——”

The colossus approached, put out his trunk and took from Nell’s fingers the blossoms, but no sooner had he put them in his mouth than he let them drop, for evidently he did not like the taste of the stringy leaves or the flowers. Nell now saw directly above her his trunk, which resembled an enormous black snake; it stretched and contracted, touched her little hands one at a time, then her arms, and at last it hung down and began to swing from side to side.

“I knew you would not hurt me,” repeated the girl, although still somewhat frightened.

The elephant flapped his huge ears, alternately extended and contracted his trunk, and gave the grunt of satisfaction that he always did when the girl approached the edge of the ravine.

Just as Stasch had once faced the lion, so now these two (Nell and the elephant) stood face to face—he, a monster resembling a house or a rock, and she a tiny crab that he, even if not angry, but merely careless, might trample under foot.

But the careful beast did not move an inch, and seemed delighted at beholding his little visitor.

Nell gradually took courage; at last, raising her eyes and looking up as if to a high roof, she timidly extended her hand and asked:

“May I stroke your trunk?”

The elephant did not understand English, but he immediately knew what she meant from the motion of her hand, and pushed the end of his two-yard-long nose into the palm of her hand. Nell began to stroke the trunk, at first only with one hand and very carefully, then with both, and at last she threw both arms around it and clung to it with childish confidence.

The elephant moved from one foot to the other, and grunted with satisfaction.

Soon after, winding his trunk around the fragile body of the girl, he lifted her high and began gently to swing her from side to side.

“More! More!” cried Nell, delighted.

This game lasted quite a while; the girl, who now had entire confidence in the elephant and was no longer afraid, thought of another plan, for on reaching the ground again she tried to climb up the foreleg of the elephant, as though climbing up a tree, or hid behind him, and asked him if he could find her. During these pranks she noticed that in the elephant’s feet, especially in its hind feet, there were a great many thorns, which the powerful animal was not able to extract, because, in the first place, he could not reach his hind legs readily with his trunk, and secondly, because he evidently was afraid of wounding the finger which forms the end of the trunk, and without which he would lose all his dexterity. Nell did not know that thorns in the feet torment Indian elephants, and especially their cousins in the African jungles, which mostly consist of prickly plants. Her sympathies were aroused for the kindly giant, and squatting down near one of his feet, she began to pull out the large thorns and then the small ones, chattering incessantly and assuring the elephant that she would not let a single one remain. He understood very well what was the matter, and bending his knee, he plainly showed that there were thorns in the soles of his feet between the hoofs protecting the toes, and these thorns were even more painful than the others.

Meanwhile Stasch had returned from hunting, and at once asked Mea where the little lady was.

On receiving the answer that she was probably in the tree, he was just going to look inside when he thought he heard her voice in the gorge. To make sure, he immediately sprang to the edge and looked down. He was so frightened at what he saw that the blood nearly froze in his veins. The girl was seated at the feet of the colossus, and the latter stood so quiet that but for the movements of his trunk and ears one might have thought him hewn out of stone.

“Nell!” screamed Stasch.

Earnestly engaged in what she was doing, she answered him cheerfully:

“In a minute! In a minute!”

The boy, who was not accustomed to postpone action when in danger, picked up his rifle with one hand, while with the other he grasped a dried liana stem, twisted both legs around it, and in a second swung himself down to the level of the narrow pass.

The elephant flapped his ears uneasily, but at this instant Nell arose, put her arms around his trunk and cried hastily, “Elephant, don’t be frightened; that’s Stasch!”

Stasch at once saw that Nell was in no danger, but even then his legs shook under him and his heart beat violently. But before he recovered from his fright he mumbled in an angry but sad voice:

“Nell, Nell, how could you do that?”

She began to excuse herself, saying she had done nothing wrong after all, for the elephant was kind and quite tame now, and she had only intended to take a closer look at him and then go back, but he had detained her by playing with her and carefully swinging her, and that if Stasch liked he would swing him, too. As she spoke these words she lifted the end of his trunk with one hand, and drawing it toward Stasch, she waved the other hand from side to side, saying:

“Elephant, rock Stasch, too!”

The intelligent animal guessed from her movements what she wanted, and in a second Stasch was grasped by the belt and swung through the air. Seeing him looking so angry and at the same time swinging through the air struck her as so comical, that she laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks, and clapping her hands, she repeated as before:

“Elephant, swing Stasch, too!”

It was utterly impossible to maintain a severe demeanor and preach morality while hanging to the end of an elephant’s trunk and being involuntarily swung to and fro with clock-like regularity, so the boy at last laughed too. After a while, noticing that the trunk was moving more slowly, and that the elephant intended to put him down, a new idea seized him, and when near one of the elephant’s large ears he held on to it, and swinging himself onto the beast’s head, seated himself on his neck.

“Aha!” he cried, as he glanced down at Nell, “he shall know that he has to obey me.”

And with the look of a lord and master he began to feel around the head of the beast.

“Good!” cried Nell from below, “but how will you get down?”

“That’s very easy,” answered Stasch.

Dropping his legs down over the elephant’s head, he fastened them around the trunk and slid down as from a tree.

“That’s the way I shall get down.”

Now they both began to pull the remaining thorns out of the elephant’s foot, and he submitted very patiently to the operation.

Meanwhile the first drops of rain had begun to fall, so Stasch decided to take Nell back to “Cracow” at once. But an unexpected obstacle stood in their way, for the elephant would on no account part with her, but turned her round with his trunk and drew her toward him. The situation began to be serious, and on account of the obstinacy of the animal their happy play was in danger of ending badly. The boy did not know what to do, for it was now raining harder and a bad storm threatened. Both retreated a short distance toward the opening, but they had only taken a few steps when the elephant followed them.

At last Stasch planted himself between Nell and the animal, looked severely at him, and whispered to Nell:

“Don’t run away, but retire slowly and with measured step toward the narrow passage.”

“And you, Stasch?” asked the little girl.

“Return!” he repeated energetically; “for otherwise I shall have to shoot the elephant.”

At this threat she obeyed, especially as she now completely trusted the elephant, and she felt sure that on no account would he hurt Stasch.

The boy stood four feet away from the giant, his eyes riveted on him. Several minutes elapsed, then the situation became decidedly dangerous. The elephant’s ears moved backwards and forwards several times, and he had a peculiar twinkle in his little eyes; he raised his trunk suddenly.

Stasch turned pale.

“Death!” he thought.

But the colossus as suddenly turned to the wall of the narrow pass, where he was accustomed to see Nell, and began to trumpet more sadly than ever before.

Stasch now advanced toward the passage, and on the opposite side of the rock he found Nell, who would not return to the tree alone.

The boy felt inclined to say to her: “See what you have done! A little more and I should have perished, and you would have been to blame.” But this was not the time to reproach her, for the rain had become a storm, and it was necessary to get home as quickly as possible. Nell was quite wet, notwithstanding that Stasch had wrapped her in his own coat.

When inside the tree Stasch ordered the negress to change Nell’s clothes immediately. He released Saba, who had been tied up in the men’s room for fear he would scent the game and frighten it away; then Stasch began to hunt through all the clothing and baggage once more, in hopes of finding a small dose of quinine which might have been overlooked. But he found nothing. There only remained a little white powder in a corner of the bottom of the vessel which the missionary in Khartum had given him, but so little that it was hardly enough to whiten the tip of one’s finger. He therefore decided to pour boiling water into the receptacle and give this water to Nell to drink.

As soon as the storm subsided and the sun had come out again, he left the tree to look at the fish caught by Kali. The negro had caught about ten with a wire, which he had used for a line. Most of them were small, but there were three a foot long, with silver spots, and of very light weight. Mea, who had grown up on the banks of the blue Nile, and knew about the fish, said that these were very good to eat, and that at night they jump high out of the water. While cleaning them it was found that they were so light because they had large air bladders inside them. Stasch took one of these little skins, which was the size of a large apple, and showed it to Nell.

“Look,” said he, “this was inside the fish. A pane for our window could be made from a quantity of these bladders.” And he pointed to the upper opening in the tree.

Then he thought for a minute and added:

“And something else.”

“What?” asked Nell, very curious.

“Kites.”

“Like those you used to fly in Port Said? Oh, good! Make some like them!”

“I will; I will make the small frames out of thin strips of bamboo, and use these bladders instead of paper. They will be lighter and better than paper and the rain will not penetrate them. Such a kite will fly very high, and in a strong wind it will fly—Heaven knows where.”

Then he suddenly tapped his forehead.

“I have an idea!”

“What is it?”

“You will see. As soon as my plan is formed you shall know all about it. And now the elephant is trumpeting so loud we can’t hear ourselves talk.”

In fact, the elephant trumpeted so loudly and continuously because he was lonesome for Nell, and perhaps for both children, that it shook the whole gorge and the neighboring trees.

“If we let him see us,” said Nell, “it may quiet him.” So they walked toward the gorge. But Stasch, quite taken up with his new idea, began to mutter to himself:

“Nell Rawlison and Stanislaus Tarkowski, from Port Said, who have escaped from the hands of the Dervishes, are to be found——”

And taking breath, he asked himself:

“Yes, yes, but where shall I say—where?”

“What, Stasch?”

“Nothing, nothing! I have it now: ‘They can be found a month’s journey away to the east of the blue Nile—and beg for immediate assistance.’ When there is a north or west wind I will send up twenty, fifty, one hundred of such kites, and you, Nell, will help me to stick them together.”

“Kites?”

“Yes, and I tell you this much—they may be of more service to us than even ten elephants.”

Meanwhile they had reached the edge of the precipice, and once more the colossus began to move from one foot to the other, to shake himself, to prick up his ears, and as soon as Nell went away for a minute he began trumpeting again. At last the girl explained to the “dear elephant” that they could not always stay with him, for they had to sleep, eat, work, and attend to household duties in “Cracow.” He was only pacified when she threw down to him the food Kali had prepared for him, but in the evening the trumpeting began again. That night the children named him the “King,” for Nell insisted that before he entered the gorge he must have been the king over all the elephants of Africa.