A
hundred yards beyond them Numa lay crouching in the underbrush,
his yellow-green eyes fixed upon his prey, the tip of his sinuous
tail jerking spasmodically. He was measuring the distance between
him and them. He was wondering if he dared venture a charge,
or should he wait yet a little longer in the hope that they might
ride straight into his jaws. He was very hungry; but also was he
very crafty. He could not chance losing his meat by a hasty and
ill-considered rush. Had he waited the night before until the
blacks slept he would not have been forced to go hungry for another
twenty-four hours.
Behind him the other that had caught his scent and that of man
together came to a sitting posture upon the branch of a tree in
which he had reposed himself for slumber. Beneath him a lumbering
gray hulk swayed to and fro in the darkness. The beast in the
tree uttered a low guttural and dropped to the back of the gray
mass. He whispered a word in one of the great ears and Tantor,
the elephant, raised his trunk aloft, swinging it high and low to
catch the scent that the word had warned him of.
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